La persona jurídica corporativa, en la civilización romana clásica

Abstract

The study analyzes the thorny and difficult problem of the origin, formation and historical-legal development of the formation of the corporate legal entity. For its construction, we have used the interdisciplinary method of interpretation and analysis of the different legal, philosophical, economic, legal, literary, epigraphic and theological sources of Roman civilization and of the medieval, Renaissance, contemporary and current periods. The most significant results and conclusions are specified in the thesis that the Roman State progressively built, through different and successive public concessions, the idea that collective entities could act as an abstract person, as subjects of law (fictio iuris of public law). The Roman powers of government, with different laws, senateconsults and imperial constitutions, decided, at each historical moment, the scope and degree of capacity of their collective organizations. The construction of the intangible corporate legal personification of cities and municipalities, schools (religious, professional and business and commercial) and associations, arose for reasons and in the interest of the State. This process was not uniform. The “power ex lege” of the Res publica decided, case by case, individually, whether or not the public concession of the corporate legal template was appropriate. This constitutional and administrative process entailed the individualized transfer of the “soul” and the legal structures of the Roman State (“corpus habere ad exemplum rei publicae”). That decided if it was appropriate to grant different powers of personification, for the exercise of different powers and subjects. The State also supervised the loyalty and functioning of the different corporations within the institutional and territorial framework of the republican constitution and, later, of the imperial power. In Rome, the process of creating the corporate legal entity was the work of its Public Law. This relevant and original conclusion (also analyzed in depth in the difficult section of the usufruct of legal persons) seems to contravene current private law. Today, the corporate legal person is an institution that is adopted by all the Civil Codes. As a result of our research conclusions, we defend, however, the need to also transfer the corporate legal entity to the constitutional texts and its different development laws. This is a constitutional legal structure of the State, necessary for the operation of the latter. Ultimately, the beneficiary corporate entities are mirrors of it and, at times, enjoy similar importance and prerogatives