Who are natural persons and legal persons?

A natural person may be defined as a normal human being. The first necessary for a normal human being is to be a legal person is that he / she must be recognized as possessing sufficient status to enable him or her to possess rights and duties. The individual should be born alive and should posses human characteristics. A child in the mother’s womb is by legal fiction as already born. (A legal fiction is a fact or situation assumed or created by courts). If he/ she is born alive, will have a legal status. Although law normally takes cognizance of living human beings yet makes exceptions in case of infant in ventre sa mere which refers to a fetus in uterus. A child which is still “en ventre sa mere” is accepted to be a minor, provided it is subsequently born alive.

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