The balance of interests as a principle of civil law

The article is devoted to the allocation of the interests balance in the system of civil law principles. The necessity to maintain the fair balance between the opposed interests runs like a golden thread through the judicial practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the European Court on Human Rights. It is reasoned that the balance of interests is an independent self-consistent legal principle of civil law. This principle implies the basic notion of the civil legislation according to which the law ought to strive to the proportionality of rights and duties of privies and to the provision of equal opportunities for implementation of privies' legal interests. The structure of this principle is formed with two sub-principles: the proportionality of rights and duties of privies, and the availability of actual opportunities for fulfiling the privies' legal interests. The principle of interests balance expands or limits the content of other principles of civil law.