The Nonhuman Rights Project`s habeas corpus trials force courts to confront and determine whether our nonhuman animal clients are legal entities and not just legal things. This distinction has profound significance. Legal persons may enjoy fundamental rights, including the right to physical liberty; Legal things, on the other hand, have no rights. Not only do we present centuries of precedent to the courts in support of our personality arguments, but we also present hundreds of pages of undisputed and solid scientific evidence showing that chimpanzees and elephants are autonomous beings. The concept of legal personality is not absolute. `penetration of the corporate veil` means the consideration of natural persons acting as agents involved in an act or decision of society; This may lead to a court decision treating the rights or obligations of a company or public limited company as rights or obligations of the members or directors of that company. In everyday language, a human being; However, depending on the law, the term may include companies, labour organizations, partnerships, associations, companies, legal representatives, trustees, receivers or insolvency practitioners. The first case of NhRP was in the name of Tommy, a chimpanzee who was held captive alone in a cage on a used trailer lot in Gloversville, New York. In December 2014, a New York appeals court addressed the issue of Tommy`s legal entity, ruling that he is not and cannot be a legal entity. This unprecedented decision, People ex rel. Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v.
Lavery («Lavery»), was deeply flawed then and still is today. The term «person» is defined in 18 U.S.C. ¢¢§ 2510(6) and means any individual and any person and entity. In particular, it includes U.S. and government officials. According to the legislative history, «o)only government units themselves are excluded.» 1097, 90. Kong., 2. Sess. 90 (1968). 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. This false quote is not a trivial error, but a fundamental error underlying the court`s decision. In the next sentence of Jurisprudence, the treaty clearly states that «every being thus capable [of rights or duties] is a person, whether human or not,» which is exactly the opposite of what Lavery said about the legal person.
This is also exactly what the NhRP has maintained from the beginning. In Italy, trade unions have legal personality, as provided for in Article 39(4) of the Constitution: not all organisations have legal personality. For example, directors of a corporation, legislature or government agency are generally not legal entities because they do not have the ability to exercise legal rights independently of the corporation or political body to which they belong. A legal or legal person (Latin: persona ficta; also a legal person) has a legal name and has certain legal rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities and obligations, similar to those of a natural person. The concept of legal person is a fundamental legal fiction. It is relevant to the philosophy of law as it is essential for laws affecting a company (corporate law). Where does Lavery come from its strange idea that a legal person needs the ability to perform legal functions? Most importantly, the court relied on the important legal treatise Jurisprudence, originally written by Sir John William Salmond, who was an accomplished barrister and judge of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. The court did not directly cite the treaty, but another source in which the case law appears: Black`s Law Dictionary, the most frequently cited legal text in the world. Artificial personality, legal personality or legal personality is the characteristic of a non-living entity that legally has the status of personality.
Lavery quoted the following sentence from the case law, as it appeared in 7. Black`s Law Dictionary is published: «As far as legal theory is concerned, a person is any being whom the law considers capable of rights and duties.» Since the 19th century, the legal person has been interpreted more broadly to make it a citizen, domicile or domicile of a state (usually for the purposes of personal jurisdiction). In Louisville, C. & C.R. Co. v. Letson, 2 Wie. 497, 558, 11 L.Ed. 353 (1844), the United States Supreme Court held that, for the purposes of this case, a corporation «may be treated both as a citizen [of the State which created it] and as an individual.» Ten years later, they confirmed Letson`s conclusion, albeit on the slightly different theory that «those who use the company`s name and exercise the powers it confers» should be conclusively regarded as citizens of the company`s founding state.
Marshall v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 16 Comment. 314, 329, 14 L.Ed. 953 (1854). These concepts have been codified by law because U.S. jurisdiction laws relate specifically to corporate domicile. A typical example of the concept of legal person in a civil jurisdiction according to the General Principles of Civil Law of the People`s Republic of China, Chapter III, Article 36: «A legal person is an organization that has the capacity to exercise civil rights and civil conduct, independently enjoys civil rights, and assumes civil law obligations in accordance with the law.» [20] It should be noted, however, that the term citizenship has a very different meaning in civil law and common law systems.