LA CAPACIDAD JURÍDICA EN LAS PERSONAS FÍSICAS Y EN LOS ENTES MORALES.

Abstract

The study commences with the idea that legal capacity is always a quality that the law acknowledges, be it to individuals or to corporate bodies. However, the degree of discretion that the law has varies widely between the two cases. The state cannot but attribute the quality of legal capacity to a person, as long as he exists and shows a reasonable sign of subsistence. On the other hand, in recognising corporate bodies as having legal capacity, the state has much more freedom; among other things, it cannot choose not to examine the ends and means of any body that aspires to become a legal person, to ensure that they are legal. The development of the study requires, accordingly: 1. Justification showing that legal capacity is a single quality. 2. Explanation of that quality in individual or natural persons, which necessitates a distinction between legal personality and legal capacity, a distinction that is merely nominal but not substantive in the authors. 3. Reflection on what legal capacity is in corporate bodies, a point that is ultimately obscured by would-be attempts to bar intervention by the state in the acknowledging of personality in corporate persons, on the pretext that the fundamental right of self-organisation so requires. Lastly, the meditations put forth are applied to the controversial case of civil societies, a field in which, as is well known, there has been a notorious and striking change in the doctrine of the Directorate- General of Registries and Notarial Affairs, which is disputable at the least.