The notion of juridical personality under Maltese law

Abstract

If the notion of juridical personality is arguably one of the most enthralling in the field of law, it definitely is one of the most voluminous. Any work dealing with the notion must necessarily be limited in scope, this thesis being a case in point. In this work, I have limited myself to the field of private law, apart from a few excursions into public law, for comparative purposes. The methodological approach adopted has been to divide the work into three distinct stages of discernment, ending by forwarding my opinions on three main points, particularly close to my heart, in a concluding chapter. Part I is a theoretical analysis of the concept of juridical personality. Chapter One sets the scene with an attempt at defining and understanding the legal implications of the term person, while Chapter Two goes into an analysis of the various theories on juridical personality. Part II, and Chapter Three propose a practical analysis, in the light of case law, to determine the moral persons under Maltese law. Conversely, Chapter Four refers to those bodies which do not have a juridical personality under Maltese law. Part Ill builds on its predecessors, embarking on a discussion regarding the relationship between personality and capacity in terms of moral persons in Chapter Five. Chapter Six considers the inverse proposition, namely the extent of the contractual, and extra-contractual liability of the juridical person under our law, besides giving a cursory glance to the criminal responsibility of juridical persons, and to the instances exposing the administrators or directors to personal liability. Chapter Seven concludes by fine tuning on the construction of s.4 of the Interpretation Act 1975, the extent of juridical capacity of moral bodies under Maltese law, and the liability in tort of juridical persons under that legal system.