The attribution of legal personality has long been associated with the fact that a person or organization may have the same or similar status as a human being. When the United States was involved in slavery, slaves were denied the right to legal personality. This meant that they could not vote, file complaints, marry legally, or enjoy any of the rights granted by the U.S. Constitution. Women, Native Americans, and other minority groups were often classified into similar categories. By denying these groups this designation, the state effectively denied that they were human, just as white men were considered human. Since the Industrial Revolution, when corporations came to power, the boundaries of a legal entity have been the subject of constant debate. While granting personality can help hold companies legally accountable for their actions, it also opens the door to many more complex issues. For example, if a company has a personality distinct from its shareholders or owners, some argue that it should also have individual rights such as voting rights. However, when voting rights are granted, shareholders are actually entitled to vote twice: once as an individual and once in the personality of the company.
Since this conflicts with most electoral systems, it remains a controversial issue in legal circles. Laws dealing with commercial organizations (i.e. corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, etc.) often use the term “legal entity,” so the laws apply to both persons and non-human business entities. The concession theory is often seen as a descendant of fiction theory, as it has a similar claim that companies do not have legal personality within the state unless granted by the state. Representatives of fictional theory, e.g. Savigny, Dicey and Salmond, support this theory.[18] Nevertheless, the theory of fiction is ultimately a philosophical theory according to which a company is only a name and a matter of intellect, while the theory of concession is indifferent to the question of the reality of a company because it focuses on the sources from which legal power comes. Dicey argued that sovereignty was merely a legal concept that indicated legislative power without legal limits. Looking at English company law case-law, it appears that in most cases the court has adopted the theory of fiction. Solomon v.
A Salomon Co Ltd is the most obvious example. It is also pointed out that the theory of fiction provides the most acceptable argument to justify the circumstances in which the court lifted the corporate veil of society. If the unity of the corporation is real, the court would not have the right to decide under what circumstances a corporation separate from the corporation should be abolished. No human being has the right to decide the circumstances in which another person`s entity is to be set aside. Only the law has such a privilege. This theory is preferred by sociologists rather than lawyers. In discussing the realism of corporate personality, most realist jurists have argued that fictional theory cannot identify the relationship of law to society in general. The main defect of the theory of fiction, according to the realist jurist, is the ignorance of the sociological facts that have developed around the legislative process. Thus, by ignoring the “real capacity and functions” of companies in the real world, fictional lawyers had not seen the “life” of a company. The realist argued that by rejecting the theory of fiction, it would be possible to reject an abstract conception and a false representation of reality that the practical lawyer must face. [29] Legal theories about the legal person had been established since the beginning of Roman law to justify the existence of a legal person other than the human person.
The State, religious bodies and educational institutions have long been recognized as separate legal entities from their members. Partly on the basis of the principle that corporations are simply organizations of natural persons, and partly on the basis of the history of the legal interpretation of the word “person,” the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that certain constitutional rights protect corporations (such as corporations and other organizations). Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad is sometimes quoted for this statement because the court reporter`s comments included a statement by the Chief Justice made before the hearing began, telling counsel during pre-trial preparation that “the court does not wish to hear arguments as to whether the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits a State from denying equal protection of the law to any person within its jurisdiction applies to such corporations. We all agree that this is the case. A corporation confers rights and obligations under the law on a person or organization. Since legal systems are designed for human use, legal personality is usually automatically attributed to human beings. In the modern world, the concept is often part of discussions about the legal rights or responsibilities of entities such as companies that cannot be defined by a single person. The concept was and still is an important part of the human rights debate.
In the common law tradition, only one person could have legal rights. In order for them to work, the legal personality of a company has been established to include five legal rights: the right to a common treasure or safe (including the right to property), the right to a corporate seal (i.e. the right to conclude and sign contracts), the right to sue (to enforce contracts). the right to hire agents (employees) and the right to enact laws (self-government). [19] A legal person does not have to be a human being, it can be anything else that the law considers to be a person. It confers a legal status that may include rights and obligations. Therefore, legal personality may be a thing, a mass property or a group of persons as a legal entity in the eyes of the law. Section 28 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 states: ” the provisions of this Bill of Rights apply, to the extent possible, for the benefit of all legal persons and all natural persons. For more information about legal entities, see this article from the Yale Law Journal, this article from the Wake Forest Law Review, and the Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs. In lawsuits involving religious entities, the deity (the deity or god is a supernatural being considered divine or holy) is also a “legal person” that can participate in a dispute through a “trustee” or “temple administrative authority.” The Supreme Court of India (SC) ruled in 2010, ruling on Ram Janmabhoomi`s Ayodhya case, that the Rama deity in the respective temple was a “legal person” entitled to be represented by its own lawyer appointed by the directors acting on behalf of the deity. Similarly, the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the Ayyappan deity was a “legal person” with a “right to privacy” in the court case concerning the entry of women into Lord Ayyapan`s Sabarimala shrine.
[22] Legal personality is generally understood as the capacity to be – in traditional anthropomorphic terms – “bearer of legal rights and duties”. Legal personality is a structuring tool in legal systems, particularly in international law, because it indicates who the participants are. This article examines the concept of “legal personality” in two different roles that are mutually constitutive. The concept functions as an epistemic tool in theoretical reflections on the functioning of international law and at the same time designates a doctrinal category within the system of international law. Both functions are taken into account, with a simultaneous change between levels of analysis and a look also at the real candidates for international legal personality that have emerged over time in different political contexts. The article deals with a sequence of moments in the evolution of the form and use of the concept that seem particularly significant. These are, with a vague indication of the periods: legal personality as a sign of legal existence (17th century) (Part 2); the external aspect of legal personality and its structuring effect (18th century) (part 3); Legal personality as the reverse of the reified state (19. Jahrhundert) (Part 4); questioning the anthropomorphic conceptualization of legal personality and questioning the closed doctrinal category of international legal persons (Interbellum) (part 5); legal personality from a constitutive legal declaration to a declaratory declaration (UN era) (Part 6); and the possible implications for the concept of legal personality of postsubjective and posthuman approaches (from the 1990s onwards) (Part 7). Although the article thus gives a diachronic account of the ILP concept, the moments identified in its development are also continuous and co-existing aspects of the concept. It is true that in the second half of the 19th century.
The central position of the State is also an important element of contemporary discourse on international legal personality. Having legal personality means being able to have legal rights and obligations in a particular jurisdiction, such as entering into contracts, suing and being sued.