The law of Persons
Kruger et al. (2010, page 11) defines law of person as that part of the objective law that regulates
the coming into being, private-law status and the coming to an end of a natural person (legal
subject). The law of person answers the question of who has legal subjectivity or who qualifies
as a legal subject and what a legal subject is legally able to do. What is a legal subject? legal
subject is an entity that can have rights, duties and capacity (Kruger et al. 2010). Law of Persons
deals with legal relationship between the bearer of rights and another legal subjects that is the
claim that a legal subject has on a legal object. What then is legal object? Legal object is
anything that in respect of which a legal subject may have rights, duties and capacities.
Further the law also state that Legal subjectivity begin at birth. Birth is regulated by common law
which state that in order for a fetus must completely separate from the mother’s body and it must
be born alive to qualify is a legal subject. The law of person also deals with protection of unborn
child known as nasciturus fiction. What is nasciturus fiction? According to (Kruger et al.2010) it
is a conceived but unborn child which was taken from Roman law. This protection is put in place
in terms of benefits that children qualify for like maintenance, inheritance etc. while the legal
subjectivity ends when a natural person dies. Proof that a person is dead is proved in two ways:
Death certificate and Direct evidence.
Law of person also deals with the status legal subject. The word status means to stand in a legal
world. Status is determined by the qualities a person has or the condition in which the person finds
himself or herself to which the law attaches certain consequences and not the income or
possessions or social standing. Law of person also deal with legal capacity which is capacity to
have rights and duties it further talks about capacity to act thus is the human act to which the law
attaches some consequences. It also deals with capacity to litigate that is to bring and defend an
action at law and it is influence by the capacity of the person to act. For example, a child or
mentally ill person lack the capacity to act and hence can’t have the capacity to litigate. Capacity
to be held accountable for crimes and delicts the former falls under public law. LOP also deals
with Domicile and Citizenship. The law of person in