Moral person

In Right, a moral person is an entity, generally a grouping, equipped with the legal Personality, following the example Natural person (an human being).

The diversity of the situations makes difficult the development of a standard general, but one can define a moral person negatively as something which can be titular of right and of obligations. A moral person is generally consisted a regrouping of natural persons or morals which wish to achieve something jointly, but it can also be a question of a regrouping of goods or of a moral person consisted the will of only one person. With the difference of the natural persons, there exist several named categories moral persons, of form and variable Legal capacity.

Many a legal systems recognizes the existence of the moral persons but the rules with regard to them vary much of the one with the other. There exist also moral persons in public International law (See on this last point the subjects of the international law) .

The legal entity confers on the moral person many attributes recognized with the natural persons, like the name, a inheritance or a Domicile. The legal entity allows in particular:

of be party to legal proceedings (i.e. to act as justice in the name of association),
to acquire movable or real property.

The legal capacity of the moral persons can be more or less wide. For example, in French right, the law of July 1st, 1901 confers the legal entity on the declared associations. One speaks about “small personality”: that makes it possible association to box resources (mainly contributions of the members, or possible public allocations) and to acquire the buildings “strictly necessary to the achievement of the goal which she proposes”.

A moral person can also be subjected to a form of control by another moral person, as in the case of the Administrative supervision.

The civil law makes a clear distinction between moral persons of Private law (undertaken, associations) and moral persons of public law (States, territorial collectivities). The Civil code of Quebec indicates thus in its article 298: The moral persons have the legal personality. /They are of public law or private law.

A moral person has always at least a natural person entitled to engage it (president for example), but this responsibility can be divided between many actors, particularly if it is a question of engaging an entire State. In this case, the capacity of the various people can be circumscribed with a precise field.

See too

Internal bonds

Right of the people

physical Personality
Legal capacity

Administrative law
Company law
Moral person: in France, in Switzerland.

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