What is a Physical Person

On right the concept of person is understood as the subject and object of law. It is the subject because the legal system is oriented to it and it is the object because the conduct of the human being is what determines that the laws act in a certain way. In most civil codes, the natural person is usually defined as that person or entity that can acquire rights and contract commitments or obligations.

Natural person and legal person

The natural person must be understood as opposed to the legal person or moral. Thus, the physical person has a visible existence and traits of humanity. In this sense, the natural person has from the moment they are born until they die a series of inalienable rights and obligations. Instead, the legal person is the set of several individuals who act as if they were an individual. The legal entity is constituted through a writing public in which the rules that define it and the obligations and rights that said person possesses are expressed (for example, a

commercial society that carries out a certain activity, a union or an association professional). In other words, the natural person has an individual character but the legal person is a set of individuals (the law refers to the legal person as a set of individual wills with common purposes).

This distinction is relevant in different areas, especially the economic one. When a company has to legally register, it must decide the legal treatment that is best for it. And for this you must choose between being a natural person or a legal person, since in each case there are a series of specific conditions and obligations (especially those related to taxes).

Some requirements to have a physical personality

Most civil codes state that birth determines the personality physical, that is, legal capacity as an individual. This does not mean that legally the unborn or unborn is legally unprotected (for example, if a woman is pregnant and her husband dies the law contemplates the hereditary rights of which she has not yet been born).

The concept of physical personality contemplates the equality between the sexes, something that historically has not always been the case. On the other hand, some laws incorporate the rights that affect transsexuals as natural persons.

As for the extinction of the physical personality, it ends with the death of an individual. In normal situations, the death is easily creditable but in some cases it is not (for For example, when someone is missing for a few years, you can request his death before the law).

Photos: iStock - gruizza / Todor Tsvetkov

Subjects in Physical Person