On What Is Just Regarding the Alienation of Property of Minors

TH. III.

Just as it is clear, on account of the free discretion that belongs to everyone regarding their own property, that it is permitted for anyone to strip themselves of the faculty of disposing of their property through a private agreement, of which matter many examples appear here and there in the laws, and one may be brought forward as an example for all from the Lex si creditor 7. §. f. ff. de distract. pign. Code/Digest reference regarding the sale of pledges; where a debtor, although he is the owner of the mortgage or pledge, once he has promised the creditor through a pact that he will not alienate it, cannot thereafter alienate it without nullity; this is different, however, in the case of one who, while acquiring a thing alienated by someone, promises the alienator at the same time that he will not alienate it anew. For in this case, one can nevertheless contravene the agreement and transfer ownership to another by alienating it, provided that interest is paid. arg. L. 3. C. de Condict. ob caus. L. 135. §. 3. ff. de V. O. L. 68. ff. eod. although Lauterbach disagrees in his Compendium, title concerning Pacts, p. 49. See also L. pen. ff. de Pact. & L. 22. pr. ff. de Leg. 3. Thus, also, laws do not exercise an unjust power over the things or persons of subjects, to such an extent that if they find it necessary or useful, they either entirely remove the effects of ownership from subjects—which we have asserted consist chiefly in the free disposition of one’s own property—or at least restrict them to certain conditions.