Summary of South African Law of Persons

## Introduction Legal personality and rights determine who the law recognises as capable of holding rights and duties, and what kinds of things the law treats as objects of those rights. This material explains the distinction between legal subjects and legal objects, the idea of juristic persons (legal persons distinct from natural persons), categories of legal objects, and practical consequences for ownership and liability in South African law. ## What is a legal subject? > A legal subject is any entity that can have rights, duties and capacities; the law confers on it legal personality. - Legal subjects include natural persons (human beings) and juristic persons (legal or artificial persons). - Legal capacity is the ability to have rights, duties and capacities. - A legal subject controls and deals with legal objects and acquires rights and duties in relation to other legal subjects. ### Practical example - A person (natural legal subject) can own a car and thus exercise ownership rights. A company (juristic person) may also own property and enter contracts through its directors. ## Juristic persons (legal persons other than humans) > A juristic person is an association or entity that the law recognises as having legal personality distinct from its members. - A juristic person enjoys legal existence independent of the natural persons who created or comprise it. - It acts through human functionaries (e.g., directors, officers) but the rights and duties belong to the juristic person itself, not to those functionaries in their personal capacities. ### Examples of capacities exercisable by juristic persons - Entering into contracts - Owning, leasing, or mortgaging property - Instituting or facing litigation (sue and be sued) - Being held liable for delicts and certain crimes ### Categories of juristic persons in South African law 1. Associations incorporated under general enabling statutes: companies, banks, mutual banks, co-operatives. 2. Entities created by special statutes: universities, state-owned enterprises and public entities (e.g., SABC, Eskom, Telkom). 3. Associations recognised at common law (universitates) when they meet specific requirements. ### Common-law universitas — requirements An association will be recognised as a juristic person at common law if it satisfies: - Continuous existence irrespective of changing membership. - Ability to have rights, duties and capacities distinct from individual members. - An object that is not primarily the acquisition of gain (i.e., not-for-profit purpose). Examples that meet these requirements include churches, political parties, and trade unions. By contrast, trusts and ordinary partnerships are generally not juristic persons at common law. Fun fact: Some statutes confer legal personality on trusts for limited purposes such as taxation, even though trusts are not juristic persons at common law. ## Legal objects — what the law treats as things > A legal object is anything on which a legal subject can have rights, duties and capacities but which cannot itself possess legal personality. - Legal objects cannot have rights or duties themselves; they are the objects of rights held by legal subjects. - Categories of legal objects typically recognised are: - Corporeal things (tangible items) - Performances (obligations to act or deliver) - Personality property (aspects of personal status and reputation) - Intellectual property (creative and industrial property) - Possible additional categories: personal intellectual objects (e.g., earning capacity, credit-worthiness) and trade secrets (proposed by some scholars) ### Corporeal things - Corporeal things are tangible items susceptible to human control and of value, such as land, cars, furniture, and animals. - Rights in corporeal things are called real rights; for example, ownership of a house or motor vehicle is a real right. Practical example: - An owner may drive a car (use right) but must not exercise that r