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WHO is a legal subject; WHEN personality begins and ends; HOW personal attributes affect capacity.

Legal (passive) capacity, capacity to act, capacity to litigate, and accountability.

At live + complete birth — separation from the mother and living after separation (Separation · Lived · Breathed).

No — registration records the birth; personality begins at live birth itself (BDRA 51 of 1992).

Conceived at the relevant time + born alive + applied to its advantage. It does not confer personality.

By incorporation or statute (e.g. a company on registration under the Companies Act 71 of 2008).

Real, Personal, Personality, and Immaterial property rights.

A legal subject is an entity recognised by law as capable of bearing rights and duties. SA law recognises natural persons (humans, from live birth to death) and juristic persons (companies, associations, the State). Legal subjectivity is the threshold quality enabling participation in legal relationships.

A legal object is anything over which a legal right can be exercised: corporeal things (tangible property), incorporeal things (claims, rights), performances (an act or omission owed), and immaterial property (intellectual property). An object is the target of a right, not the holder of it.

A child already conceived but not yet born is regarded as already born (nasciturus pro iam nato habetur) whenever this is to its advantage — e.g. to inherit, or to claim for antenatal injuries. The benefit vests only if the child is later born alive.

The Law of Succession Amendment Act 43 of 1992 (s 2D of the Wills Act) creates a rebuttable statutory presumption that a testator intends to benefit a child who was conceived before the testator's death and born alive after it — unless the will clearly indicates otherwise. The child inherits as if alive at the testator's death. The fiction is not needed where the will expressly covers unborn descendants, but it operates as a safety net where the will is silent on the point.

A juristic person (company, close corporation, association, the State) is a legal subject distinct from its members. It can own property, sue and be sued, and contract in its own name; its existence is separate from its founders and members.

The litigant must have a sufficient, direct interest in the matter; the interest must be current (not hypothetical or academic); the person must be the holder of the right asserted; and the person must have the capacity to litigate. Locus standi is a procedural prerequisite.

(1) Delict — a wrongful, culpable act causing harm (conduct, wrongfulness, fault, causation, damage); (2) contract — breach of a binding agreement; (3) unjustified enrichment — one person enriched at another's expense without legal cause (sine causa). Each has its own requirements and remedies.