We explain what a subject of law is in the legal sciences and what types exist. In addition, we offer you examples from everyday life.
What is a subject of law?
In law and legal sciences, a subject of right is understood to any individual or collective entity to which legal capacity can be attributed. In other words, it is any person (natural or legal) with rights and obligations. Generally, “subject of law” is equivalent to “person.”
A subject of law, then, is recognized because You can exercise your rights or you can be charged with obligations something that, for example, animals or things cannot do. The term “subject of law” refers to the fact that they are entities subject to law, that is, subject to the legal order.
There are some specific exceptions to this characterization, such as the designation in the National Constitution of Ecuador of nature as a subject of law, in order to force the system to ensure its needs and assume an ecological perspective. Even so, it is more of a legal fiction than a real personality, since nature cannot claim its rights; Some person, natural or legal, must do so on your behalf.
Types of subject of law
Subjects of law can be of two types, fundamentally:
- Subjects of individual law or visible existence. Equivalent to natural persons, that is, human individuals capable of assuming obligations and demanding their rights, or requesting someone to do so.
- Subjects of collective law or ideal existence. Equivalent to legal persons, that is, organizations, institutions, companies and other organizations that have a legal identity, rights and obligations.
On the other hand, it is also possible to distinguish between:
- Common subjects of law equivalent to any natural or legal person that does not have a special legal status.
- Special subjects of law considered as “legally weak” and who occupy a protected or special category within the legislation, such as children, patients, pregnant women, the elderly, displaced people or people with mental disabilities.
Examples of subjects of law
Examples of subjects of law are:
- A person who fulfills his duties how to pay taxes, and demands their rights, such as legal security and equality before the law.
- A company or corporation that has its own assets, manages assets and liabilities, and responds to the law in a coherent and united manner, despite the fact that it is made up of hundreds of shareholders and employees.
- A person who is in prison and to whom, during the course of her sentence, certain freedoms and rights have been suspended, but who continues to have the rest and continues to be subject to the law and common obligations.
- a public institution that manages some set of public goods and provides certain types of services.
Continue with: Legal regulations
References
- “Subject of law” in Wikipedia.
- “Subject of law” in the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Legal Spanish of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “Classification of the subject of law in the face of the advance of genomics and procreation” in Acta Bioethica (recovered in SciELO).
