Droit des Personnes - Legal Personality and Status

Vocabulary flashcards covering the acquisition, loss, concepts, and legal definitions of personality in French law.

Summa divisio

The fundamental structural division of the French legal system that strictly classifies everything into either a legal person (personne juridique) or a legal thing (chose juridique), with no intermediate category.

Sujet de droit (Subject of Law)

An entity possessing legal personality that holds rights and obligations and is capable of performing legal actions, such as entering into contracts or holding assets.

Objet de droit (Object of Law)

Passive things under the control of legal subjects that cannot perform legal acts or hold rights and obligations.

Personne physique (Physical Person)

A legal person who is a human being with a flesh-and-blood body, holding legal personality from live and viable birth until death.

Personne morale (Legal / Moral Entity)

An entity composed of a group of individuals or assets granted legal personality, enabling it to hold rights and obligations independently (e.g., corporations, associations, or the State).

Théorie de la fiction (Fiction Theory)

The legal theory holding that a moral entity's legal personality is a legal creation that can only exist if explicitly granted by a text of law.

Théorie de la réalité (Reality Theory)

The legal theory affirmed in the January 28, 1954 Court of Cassation ruling (Comité d'établissement de Saint-Chamond), establishing that a moral entity automatically exists once specific criteria are fulfilled, even without an explicit statutory text.

Conditions for Legal Personality of a Moral Entity

The two cumulative conditions established by the 1954 ruling: having its own distinct interest (intérêt propre) and possessing a capacity for collective expression (capacité d'expression collective).

Mort civile (Civil Death)

A historical French penal sanction abolished on May 31, 1854, under which a living person lost all legal personality, dissolving their marriage and stripping them of legal rights.

Principle of Human Dignity

A constitutional and international principle protecting all human beings regardless of legal personality, integrated into Article 16 of the French Civil Code in 1994.

Article 515-14 of the Civil Code

The Civil Code provision stating that animals are living beings endowed with sensitivity, while remaining subject to the regime of property subject to laws protecting them.

Conditions for Acquiring Legal Personality

Three cumulative requirements for a human child to gain legal personality: being born, being born alive, and being born viable.

Status of the Embryo

Under French law, an unborn fetus is classified as a chose juridique rather than a personne juridique; consequently, Court of Cassation rulings (1999 and 2001) established that involuntary manslaughter charges do not apply to the loss of an embryo.

Infans conceptus

The legal adage establishing that a conceived child is deemed born whenever it is in its interest, provided that it is subsequently born alive and viable.

Legal Conception Period (Article 311)

The statutory presumption under Article 311 of the Civil Code that conceives a child as having been conceived during the period between the 300th and 180th day preceding birth.

Brain Death (Mort cérébrale)

The medical and legal definition of death codified in Article R1232-1 of the Public Health Code, defined by the irreversible cessation of brain functions.

Jugement déclaratif de décès

A judicial ruling under Article 88 of the Civil Code declaring a missing person dead when they disappeared in life-threatening circumstances and their body could not be recovered.

Présomption d'absence

A legal stage under Article 112 of the Civil Code where a missing person who has ceased appearing at their domicile without news is presumed alive and given a representative to manage their patrimony.

Déclaration d'absence

A judicial declaration made 10 years after a presumption of absence (or 20 years without one) that produces all the legal effects of physical death, dissolving marriage and opening succession.