Guardian refers to the person who is responsible for supervising and protecting the personal, property and other legitimate rights and interests of minors and mental patients.
Although the legal representative and guardian may sometimes be held concurrently by one person and have close ties, Wuhu lawyer pointed out that there are obvious differences between them:
(A) the purpose of the two settings is different. The purpose of establishing a guardian according to law is to protect the person, property and other legitimate rights and interests of the ward, solve the obstacles of people without civil capacity and those with limited civil capacity, and realize the civil rights capacity of citizens. The purpose of legal agent is to represent the ward in civil and litigation activities, so that people with no or limited capacity for civil conduct can actively participate in civil and litigation activities through the agent of legal agent to meet their own interests.
(2) Different responsibilities. The legal representative is the legal status given to the guardian by law, so that the guardian can better perform the duties of the guardian. Therefore, when minors or mental patients cause damage to others, the legal basis of the guardian's responsibility lies in the guardian's fault responsibility, that is, the guardian's failure to control the noble duties of the ward is not the responsibility for the formation of legal agent status, nor is it the civil liability borne by the guardian on behalf of minors or mental patients.
(3) Different identities. In real life, the guardian sometimes has two roles, namely, the identity of the defendant and the agent. For example, in a criminal incidental civil case, the guardian is not only the defendant in the incidental civil action, but also the legal agent of the criminal defendant, both the party and the agent. Therefore, it needs to be made clear in legal documents that the guardian is both the civil defendant and the legal agent of the criminal defendant. If it is only listed as a legal representative and the identity of the civil defendant is not clear, it means that the guardian himself is not a litigant, but only the legal agent of the criminal defendant, and his duty is only to represent the lawsuit, which has no interest in the litigation result. In this way, at the end of the lawsuit, there is no theoretical basis for judging that the legal representative bears civil liability to the client.
Close relatives include: spouse, parents, children, brothers and sisters, grandparents, grandparents, grandchildren, grandchildren and other relatives who have the relationship of raising and supporting.