REVOCAZIONE. — In the law of the Church, the term has a single meaning and refers exclusively to an act performed by the competent legislative or administrative authority for the purpose of abrogating existing legal norms or administrative provisions; in civil legislation, on the other hand, it has a twofold meaning: one refers to all acts of a person legitimately concerned with revoking a specific transaction or contract, directly or judicially; the other denotes an extraordinary means of challenging judgments, that is, an institution of a procedural nature.
In various canons, the CIC refers to the institution of revocatio. In dealing with the abrogation of a law, can. 22 establishes that canon law ceases to be in force, among other things, through express abrogation, that is, when the new law expressly states that the previous one is abrogated. It is true that the word revocatio is not explicitly used in the aforementioned canon, but that reference was intended to be made to it is indubitably evident from the subsequent can. 23: In dubio revocatio legis praexistenti non praesumitur. Other cases of revocatio occur with regard to privileges and rescripts. Indeed, can. 60 § 1 lists among the principal cases in which a privilege ceases the revocation notified to the interested person: rescriptum, per peculiarem superioris actum revocatum, perdurai usque dum revocatio ei, qui illud obtinuit, significatur; likewise, can. 71 speaks of the revocation of privileges contained in the CIC itself only in the case of a subsequent general law. Rescripts, which, like privileges, are ordinarily perpetual, likewise cease through r., whenever the granting authority considers that the concession contained in the rescript no longer corresponds to the good of the individual or to the criteria of sound ecclesiastical administration. Other cases in which the institution of r. is invoked concern the impossibility of revoking a donation made to churches propter ingratum praetati vel rectoris animum (can. 1036 § 4), and the revocation of the right of patronage by the Apostolic See (can. 1470 § 1, n. 2).
The Italian Cod. civ. also contemplates various cases of r. Among those deserving greater attention is the revocation of a mandate (art. 1722 § 2), whereby the said contract is extinguished if the principal terminates it by unilateral withdrawal. As to the manner of effecting it, revocation may be express or tacit (art. 1724).
A donation may be revoked for two reasons, exhaustively established in the Cod. civ. (art. 800), namely, ingratitude or the subsequent birth of children. Both grounds of r. are subject to mandatory time limits for filing the action: the first must be brought by the donor or the donor’s heirs within one year from the day on which the donor became aware of the fact permitting r.; the other within five years from the day of the birth of the last legitimate child or descendant, or from the discovery of the existence of the child or descendant, or from the recognition of the natural child.
Also worthy of mention is the total or partial revocation by the testator of a will. Under art. 680 of the Cod. civ., revocation may be effected « only by a new will » or by an instrument received by a notary in the presence of two witnesses, in which the testator personally declares that he revokes the previous disposition in whole or in part. A particular case of r. ope legis of a will occurs, under art. 687, through the subsequent birth of children who are forced heirs.
The Cod. of Civ. Proc. then contemplates the institution of r. as an extraordinary means of challenging a judgment, available on grounds exhaustively specified, before the same judge who rendered the judgment whose annulment is sought, when, since the judgment is no longer subject to other remedies permitting an examination of the facts, the injustice of the decision could not otherwise be remedied. This institution corresponds to revision within the sphere of criminal procedural law (art. 553 et seq.) and to restitutio in integrum (v.) in canonical procedure (can. 1902 et seq.). Art. 395 of the Cod. of Civ. Proc. lists the specific cases permitting such a challenge: namely, 1) when the judgment is the result of fraud by one of the parties to the detriment of the other; 2) when judgment was rendered on the basis of evidence subsequently recognized or otherwise declared false, or which the unsuccessful party was unaware had previously been recognized or declared false before the judgment; 3) when, after the judgment, a decisive document is discovered that the unsuccessful party had been unable to produce; 4) when the judgment is the result of an error of fact arising from the evidence admitted in the proceedings; 5) when the judgment is contrary to an earlier judgment having the force of res judicata between the parties, provided that it did not rule on the relevant objection; 6) when the judgment is the result of fraud by the judge established by a judgment having become final. The ordinary means of challenge are, as is evident, available against a judgment rendered upon r.; some writers, however, exclude in principle the possibility that it may itself be subject to a further challenge by r., in order to satisfy the fundamental requirement of legal certainty.