DOMICILE AND QUASI-DOMICILE. - I. D. - Domicile is the place where a member of the faithful has his or her stable residence, acquired according to the norms of the CIC and productive of a juridical bond with its attendant legal effects.
According to can. 92 § 1, domicile arises from residence in a determined place with the intention of remaining there forever, si nihil inde avocet; or from actual residence for a complete decade.
It can therefore be said that domicile results from the concurrence of two elements, residence and stability. But when residence has actually been protracted for a decade, stability is presumed, whatever the intention of the resident; whereas, if this ten-year residence is lacking, stability depends on the animus ibi manendi perpetuo. This intention or will, however, need not be such as to exclude in perpetuity the prospect of a possible move, provided that at the present moment there is no foreseeing of a certain change of residence.
If residence takes place stably in a parish or quasi-parish, one has parochial domicile; if, on the other hand, it takes place in a diocese, prefecture or apostolic vicariate, but not constantly in the same parish or quasi-parish, one has diocesan domicile (can. 92 § 3).
The specification draws its origin from the material element of domicile, but the insertion of the figure of diocesan domicile is especially necessary, and it appears more than justified by the condition of many of the faithful, largely laborers, who by reason of work and convenience have no fixed seat within the bounds of a parish, because it is too restricted for their needs. The same holds for the member of the faithful who lives in a prefecture or apostolic vicariate not yet divided into quasi-parishes.
Parochial and diocesan domicile are not two concurrent domiciles that can coexist at the same time, but they exclude one another.
Domicile as constituted above by one who is of age and not of unsound mind is called voluntary domicile. On the other hand, that which the law itself assigns to determined categories of persons subject to the authority of another is called legal or necessary domicile.
The following have legal domicile (can. 93 § 1): 1) the wife not legitimately separated, who has the same domicile as her husband; if, however, she is legitimately separated, she can acquire a domicile of her own; 2) the minor, who has the domicile of the one who exercises authority over him; 3) the person of unsound mind, who assumes the domicile of the curator or guardian.
II. QUASI-DOMICILE
In imitation of the domicile, the CIC likewise outlines the institution of the quasi-domicile: a purely canonical institution, slowly elaborated by doctrine. Canon 92 § 2 also makes it arise from the same fundamental elements. The difference lies in the intended or actually elapsed duration of the residence: residence joined to the intention of remaining for more than half the year, or actual residence for the greater part of the year (that is, for more than 182 or 183 days).
III. COMMON PRINCIPLES
The quasi-domicile can concur with the domicile: there can be coexistence of voluntary domicile with voluntary or necessary quasi-domicile, or coexistence of necessary domicile with voluntary quasi-domicile. Likewise, the coexistence of necessary domicile with necessary quasi-domicile is not repugnant, although some authors flatly deny the existence of the latter; two voluntary quasi-domiciles can also coexist. It is, moreover, undisputed in canon law that one may have several domiciles at the same time, as in the case of one who resides during the year in four different places, respectively for four periods of three months each, with the animus ibi perpetuo manendi.
Both domicile and quasi-domicile have their juridical relevance in constituting a bond between the one who resides and the ecclesiastical territorial circumscription to which the place belongs, and between the one who resides and the ecclesiastical superior who heads the circumscription. Thus one speaks of the proper Ordinary or proper pastor of someone, respectively the one of the diocese or of the parish in which he has either domicile or quasi-domicile (can. 94; therefore, the same person can have several proper Ordinaries or several proper pastors). Every faithful is called an incola in the place where he has his domicile; an advena where he has his quasi-domicile; a peregrinus if he is outside his domicile and his quasi-domicile; a vagus if he has neither domicile nor quasi-domicile in any place (cf. can. 91).
Voluntary domicile and quasi-domicile are lost when the diocesus a loco and the animus non revertendi occur simultaneously, or when necessary domicile is acquired (can. 95).
The loss, on the other hand, of legal domicile and quasi-domicile takes place through a change in the juridical condition on which they depended in their origin.
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Enrico Zanetta