INTRODUCTION
Persons may be either natural or artificial. There may be a human being who is not a person, e.g. enslaved people, and there may be persons who are not human beings, e.g. a corporation, etc.
The subject of rights and duties is generally human beings, but certain groups of men or property are also legally capable of being the subjects of rights and obligations. Such imitations of the personality of human beings are also regarded as persons in the artificial sense.
DEFINITION OF PERSON
According to Prof. Gray:
“A person is an entity to which rights and duties may be attributed.”
KINDS OF PERSONS
Persons are of two Kinds:
(A) Natural Persons
(B) Legal Persons
(A) NATURAL PERSONS
A natural, as opposed to an artificial person, is such a human being as is regarded by law as;
- Capable of rights and duties and as having status.
- They are recognized by law as such by fact.
Natural persons are living beings recognized as persons by the state.
(B) LEGAL PERSONS
They are also called Legal, Juristic, Fictitious, or Conventional Persons.
Legal persons are genuine or imaginary for legal reasoning and are treated to a greater or lesser degree in the same way as humans.
- They are persons in law but not, in fact, beings.
- Legal persons are fictitious, juristic, conventional, artificial, or moral.
In Simple words, a legal person has an actual existence, but their personality is fiction.
Types of Legal Persons:
A legal person may be divided into three types concerning different things that the law selects for personifications.
(a) Institution:
In this class, the object selected for personification is not a group or series of persons but an institution—mosques, hospitals, churches, universities, etc.
(b) Funds of Estate:
In this case, the corpus is some fund or estate devoted to particular uses, such as a charitable fund or a trust estate.
(c) Corporations:
A corporation is a group or series of persons that is regarded and treated as a person by legal fiction. The living officials are merely the agents or representatives through whom the legal person performs its function. The individuals forming the corpus of the corporation are called its members.
Kinds of Corporations:
(i) Corporation Aggregate:
It is an incorporated group or body of co-existing persons united to advance certain ends or interests. It has an existence distinct from its members.
For example, a municipal corporation, a registered company, a Railway Corporation, a joint stock company, etc., are corporation aggregate instances(ii) Corporation Sole:
It is an incorporated series of successive persons.
- It consists of only one person at a time.
- It has a dual personality, firstly as a private person and secondly as occupant of an office.
For example, the king, the archbishops, the postmaster general, and interior ministry in instances of corporation sole.
DOUBLE PERSONALITY
It is the legal status of one regarded by the law as a person or the legal conception by the law considers a human being or an artificial entity as a person.
Status of Double Personality: Double personality always possesses a permanent position and succeeding office, which never ends as the Crown of U.K. It is Sole Corporation in real terms.
CONCLUSION
The conception of personality is linked inseparably with the concept of rights. So, the one the law does not regard as capable of rights and duties is not a “person” even though he may be a man. Some rights of dead persons are protected by law; similarly, an unborn child enjoys some rights contingent on his live birth.
FAQs
Define Person. Distinguish between corporation and firm?
(2019-A)
Define person. Explain various kinds of legal persons.
(2018-A)
How corporation is different from a firm? Discuss the liabilities of a corporation. Also, discuss the objects of incorporation.
(2015-S, 2016-A)
Define Legal Persons. Explain various kinds of persons.
(2010-S)
