ABSENCE. - In legal language the term a. is sometimes taken in the common meaning of non-presence, and sometimes instead in a special meaning.
In the first sense one speaks of a. and of absent persons, as opposed to presence, those present, those in attendance, etc., especially in the case of failure to be present or to take part in an act, on the part of one who normally should take part in it (for example, deliberations or other collegial acts, judicial hearings, etc.), and, in canon law, also in the case of violation of the obligation of residence (v.) on the part of the holder of an office that entails such an obligation.
In the second sense, on the other hand, a. occurs when a person has no longer appeared in the place of his last domicile or of his last residence, and no further news of him is had, so that it is not known ubi sit et an sit. Civil laws are accustomed to lay down, for such a case, various rules directed at protecting the interests (especially familial and patrimonial) of the absent person, and also, especially when the a. is prolonged and it therefore becomes ever more probable that the absent person is no longer alive, the interests of those who may be presumed to be his successors in the event of his death. The measures that the civil law provides to regulate the fate of the legal relationships of the absent person are always such as to take into account the eventuality that the a. may cease (cf. for Italy, art. 48 ff. of the Civil Code and art. 721 ff. of the Code of Civil Procedure; for the State of Vatican City, art. 20 ff. of the Civil Code, and art. 842 ff. of the Code of Civil Procedure).
The a. ceases if the absent person returns or his existence is proved, or conversely his death. In legislations that admit so-called presumed death, the a. also ceases with the declaration of presumed death. For the effects that absence and especially presumed death can have on marriage, v. LIGAMEN.
Pio Ciprotti