Traditionally, the world of law has distinguished between two
types of persons: the natural person and the legal
person.
The notion of a natural person need not be explained in detail.
It denotes a human person subject to legal rights and duties.
However, we do need to explain the reasons for the emergence of the
notion of a legal person.
Unlike a natural person, a legal person is not something
that we can see or touch, but a fiction created by the law
maker. In ancient Rome, the jurists who laid the
foundations of our law, saw the need to create a new institution
subject to rights and obligations.
The notion of a legal person was invented in order to resolve
the practical needs of a group of people who wanted to conduct
their business transactions through a non-human entity. A legal
person is not a human person but a legal entity such as a company.
Without this invention, the capitalist society that we live in
today would surely not exist.
