Legal Subjects, Facts, and Acts: Key Concepts
Legal Subjects
1. Notion
The human person is the central point around which law is established. It is a “subject” of law in two senses:
- This “subject” is subject to the law.
- It is a “subject” as the holder of the powers conferred by law.
Therefore, from a legal standpoint, the human person is called a subject, as they are subject to the rules of law and as the holder of powers granted by legal standards. The law considers the human not only as a biological being but also as a spiritual being endowed with intellect and will, free and capable of rational self-determination, responsible for their own acts and development.
2. Classes of Legal Subjects
Individual Subjects
The individual, being a physical, real person, is more susceptible to appearing as a legal subject. The individual legal entity has legal personality by the mere fact of being a human. To deny a human’s legal personality is a contradiction, because by the very fact of being human, they already have legal personality. The individual legal person is constituted by the individual real substrate that is called man.
Complex or Collective Subjects
There are groups of people that the law recognizes as having legal capacity, property, and assets. This is a phenomenon recognized throughout time, as humans have associated to achieve goals that they cannot reach alone.
Legal Facts
1. Notion
Legal facts are events or situations that produce an alteration of the legal reality, i.e., a legal effect. Therefore, they are legally relevant.
2. Classes of Legal Facts
Independent of Man’s Will
These are all natural or accidental events that have legal consequences, such as death.
Dependent on Man’s Will
These are all events caused by humans that have the effect of creating, modifying, transmitting, or extinguishing a right.
Legally Permissible Facts
These are facts that have been executed to produce legal effects, because they are guaranteed by the law. For example, contracts.
Legal Offense Facts
These are facts to which the law ascribes a sanction. They are not enshrined or guaranteed by the law because the law does not want these acts to be performed. They can be civil or criminal legal offenses.
Legal Acts
1. Definition
A legal act is an external manifestation of will in order to generate, modify, transmit, or extinguish a right.
2. Elements
Essential Elements of the Act
Will
This is the known consent, the provisions, the resolution to do things. It must be valid, free of vices such as errors, fraud, violence, or injury, and it must be expressed in a way that leaves no doubt about the relation to the legal act performed.
- Error: To believe as true what is false and take as false what is true.
- Fraud: Any deception intended to surprise the good faith of another.
- Violence: Physical or moral coercion exercised over a person to make them perform a legal act.
- Injury: The economic damage a person suffers when performing a legal act that results in inequality between the benefit received and the sacrifice consented to.
Will can be:
- Express: When it is expressed by the parties categorically.
- Tacit: When it is shown by the parties, not in a categorical way, but by behavior that implies acceptance.
- Alleged: When the law assigns a particular act as a declaration of will.
Object
This is the law on which the parties create, modify, transmit, or extinguish legal relationships. The object must be possible and legally permissible.
Cause
This is the motive of the act, which varies from one legal act to another. It must always be lawful. If it is unlawful, it generates responsibility for the transgressor of the law.
Accidental Elements of the Act
Condition
This is a future but uncertain event, whose realization depends on the emergence or extinction of a right.
Term
This is a future and certain event on which the exercise or termination of a right depends.
Mode
This is an oscillation between the condition and the term, presented as a burden on the recipient.