The personal status has traditionally relied on the criterion ofnationality, as enshrined in Article 9.1 of the Spanish Civil Code. However, the increasing digitalisation of legal life requires a reinterpretation of this connecting factor in light of new realities. This paper argues that digital capacity should be regarded as an evolutionary manifestation of the personal status, essential to ensuring the effectiveness of rights in a global technological environment. It also proposes the usefulness of electronic residence as an emerging connecting factor, complementary to nationality and habitual residence, insofar as it reflects the individual's technological integration within a verifiable digital ecosystem. The analysis covers Spanish law (Articles 9 and 12 CC), European Regulations (Rome I, Rome IIand eIDAS2014 and 2024), as well as case law from the CJEU and the Spanish Supreme Court, with the aim of suggesting a dynamic and contextual interpretation of the personal status in the digital society.
The purpose of this paper is to study the concept of "the other party contract"as set out in Articles 17 to 19 of the Brussels I bis Regulation, which, together with the concept of consumer, defines the subjective scope ofjurisdiction in consumer contracts under the Regulation. In the absence of a precise definition, this concept is constructed based on the notion of consumer and the requirement that the contract has been effectively concluded. As with the notion of consumer, the body of EU secondary legislation based on directives in this area serves as a key tool for the systematic interpretation of this concept, particularly in cases where the consumer is contractually bound, in an inseparable manner, to two co-contracting parties.
The fact thatSpain is a territorially based multi-legislative State explains the existence within its legal order of an interregional system designed to resolve conflicts of laws that may arise from the potential applicability of more than one Spanish law to an internal private relationship. For the purpose of determining the law applicable to a succession mortis causa, Spanish law relies on the connecting factor of "vecindad civil", a status that is exclusive to Spanish nationals. However, this connection-while not without difficulties-proves effective in fulfilling its assigned function only in domestic situations, since it becomes inapplicable when, exceptionally, in a case involving an external element, Spanish law is designated as applicable to the succession of a foreign national as a result of a first-degree renvoi. In such cases, the prevailing scholarly opinion has advocated, by analogy, recourse to the law of the deceased's last habitual residence, a solution that has now been endorsed by the Supreme Court in its judgment of 19 May 2025. This ruling, which deserves commendation, also has the merit of offering robust guidance as to the conditions that future decisions developing this line of case law should satisfy in order to address situations not covered either by the existing autonomous conflict-of-laws rules or by the Supreme Court's recent position. Nevertheless, the most far-reaching lesson that may perhaps be drawn from the Supreme Court's decision is the need to project its reasoning onto cases governed by Regulation 650/2012 in which the conflict-of-laws rules of that instrument refer to the Spanish multi-legislative legal order, so as-by extending to its utmost limit the interpretation offered by our Supreme Court-to take sides in the debate concerning the correct application of Article 36 of the European instrument.
