Custodios (DCH) (Custodians (DCH))

No. 2019-20

The article aims to study the legal position of the person who was entrusted with the custody and safekeeping of the property of the defendant given to the plaintiff in a process (custodio). The article analyzes the kind of regulation that was given by the law as the main way to fight against the phenomenon of the contempt or persistent absence of the defendant in the canon law procedure in the Indias, i. e. the giving of possession (missio in possessionem) of the property of the defendant to the plaintiff. To this purpose, the article presents a study of the obligations of the custodian, the way of evidence and the “vía de asentamiento”, and also the delivery of good as a consequence of a second judicial decision (ex secundo decreto). The article aims at establishing that the canon law in the Indias followed quite closely the dispositions of the Castilian law.