A juridical person is a legal person that is not a natural person but an organization recognized by law as a fictitious person such as a corporation, government agency, non-governmental organisation, or international organization (such as the European Union). Other terms include artificial person, corporate person, judicial person, juridical entity, juridic person, or juristic person. A juridical person maintains certain duties and rights as enumerated under relevant laws. [1] [2] The rights and responsibilities of a juridical person are distinct from those of the natural persons constituting it.
Since the beginning of writing at the start of recorded history, associations have been known as the original form of the juridical person. This is documented for the 1st century A.D. for Jewish trading companies.[ clarification needed ] In Roman law, entities gained significance through institutions such as the state, communities, corporations (universitates) and their associations of persons and assets, as well as associations. At least three persons were required in Rome to found an association.
The term juridical person ("pessoa jurídica" in Portuguese) is used in legal science for designating an entity with rights and liabilities which also has legal personality. Its regulations are largely based on Brazil's Civil Code, where it is distinctly recognized and defined, among other normative documents.
Brazilian law recognizes any association or abstract entity as a juridical person, but a registry is required through a Constitutional Document, with specifications depending on the category of Juridical Person and local law of state and city.
For a typical example of the concept of legal person in a civil law jurisdiction, under the General Principles of Civil Law of the People's Republic of China, Chapter III, Article 36., "A legal person shall be an organization that has capacity for civil rights and capacity for civil conduct and independently enjoys civil rights and assumes civil obligations in accordance with the law." [3] Note however that the term civil right means something altogether different in civil law jurisdictions than in common law jurisdictions.
Article 19(3) of the German Constitution sets forth: "Fundamental rights shall also apply to domestic artificial persons insofar as the nature of such rights shall permit." [4]
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity and recognized as such in law for certain purposes. Early incorporated entities were established by charter. Most jurisdictions now allow the creation of new corporations through registration. Corporations come in many different types but are usually divided by the law of the jurisdiction where they are chartered based on two aspects: whether they can issue stock, or whether they are formed to make a profit. Depending on the number of owners, a corporation can be classified as aggregate or sole.
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products. It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."
Corporate personhood or juridical personality is the legal notion that a juridical person such as a corporation, separately from its associated human beings, has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. In most countries, a corporation has the same rights as a natural person to hold property, enter into contracts, and to sue or be sued.
In law, a legal person is any person or legal entity that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for the term "legal person" is that some legal persons are not people: companies and corporations are persons legally speaking, but they are not people in a literal sense.
A person is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and, consequently, what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts.
In jurisprudence, a natural person is a person that is an individual human being, distinguished from the broader category of a legal person, which may be a private or public organization. Historically, a human being was not necessarily considered a natural person in some jurisdictions where slavery existed rather than a person.
A joint-stock company (JSC) is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares. Shareholders are able to transfer their shares to others without any effects to the continued existence of the company.
A foundation is a type of profit organization or charitable trust that usually provides funding and support to other charitable organizations through grants, while also potentially participating directly in charitable activities. Foundations encompass public charitable foundations, like community foundations, and private foundations, which are often endowed by an individual or family. Nevertheless, the term "foundation" might also be adopted by organizations not primarily engaged in public grantmaking.
Legal capacity is a quality denoting either the legal aptitude of a person to have rights and liabilities, or altogether the personhood itself in regard to an entity other than a natural person.
Corporate law is the body of law governing the rights, relations, and conduct of persons, companies, organizations and businesses. The term refers to the legal practice of law relating to corporations, or to the theory of corporations. Corporate law often describes the law relating to matters which derive directly from the life-cycle of a corporation. It thus encompasses the formation, funding, governance, and death of a corporation.
A general partnership, the basic form of partnership under common law, is in most countries an association of persons or an unincorporated company with the following major features:
An eingetragener Verein, abbreviated e.V., is a legal status for a registered voluntary association in Germany. While any group may be called a Verein, registration as eingetragener Verein confers many legal benefits, because it confers the status of a juridical person rather than just a group of individuals. The legal status must be mentioned in the name as well. Like certain other corporate bodies, an eingetragener Verein can apply for the status of a charitable organization.
A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether natural, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared goals.
Personhood is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a legal person has rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities, and legal liability.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, a person is a subject of certain legal rights and obligations. Persons may be distinguished between physical and juridic persons. Juridic persons may be distinguished as collegial or non-collegial, and public or private juridical persons. The Holy See and the Catholic Church as such are not juridic persons since juridic persons are created by ecclesiastical law. Rather, they are moral persons by divine law.
A campaign finance reform amendment refers to any proposed amendment to the United States Constitution to authorize greater restrictions on spending related to political speech, and to overturn Supreme Court rulings which have narrowed such laws under the First Amendment. Several amendments have been filed since Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and the Occupy movement.
Environmental personhood or juridic personhood is a legal concept which designates certain environmental entities the status of a legal person. This assigns to these entities, the rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities and legal liability of a legal personality. Because environmental entities such as rivers and plants can not represent themselves in court, a "guardian" can act on the entity's behalf to protect it. Environmental personhood emerged from the evolution of legal focus in pursuit of the protection of nature. Over time, focus has evolved from human interests in exploiting nature, to protecting nature for future human generations, to conceptions that allow for nature to be protected as intrinsically valuable. This concept can be used as a vehicle for recognising Indigenous peoples' relationships to natural entities, such as rivers. Environmental personhood, which assigns nature certain rights, concurrently provides a means to individuals or groups such as Indigenous peoples to fulfill their human rights.
Algorithmic entities refer to autonomous algorithms that operate without human control or interference. Recently, attention is being given to the idea of algorithmic entities being granted legal personhood. Professor Shawn Bayern and Professor Lynn M. LoPucki popularized through their papers the idea of having algorithmic entities that obtain legal personhood and the accompanying rights and obligations.
The strawman theory is a pseudolegal conspiracy theory originating in the redemption/A4V movement and prevalent in antigovernment and tax protester movements such as sovereign citizens and freemen on the land. The theory holds that an individual has two personas, one of flesh and blood and the other a separate legal personality and that one's legal responsibilities belong to the strawman rather than the physical individual.