legal fiction
A legal fiction is created when a statute declares that something shall be “deemed” to be what it is not, or a court treats a fact as existing for a legal purpose. Examples: a company is deemed a person; an award of a Lok Adalat is deemed a decree; a deemed dividend in tax law.
Courts give a legal fiction full effect within its purpose and carry it to its logical conclusion, but they do not extend it beyond the purpose for which it was created. The classic statement is Lord Asquith’s: if you are told to imagine a state of affairs as real, you must also imagine as real its inevitable consequences.
Example
Since Section 21 of the Legal Services Authorities Act creates a legal fiction, a Lok Adalat award is executable as if it were a civil court decree.
In Indian law
- East End Dwellings Co. Ltd. v. Finsbury Borough Council (House of Lords, 1952): a deeming provision is carried to its logical conclusion
See also
legal personality · presumption · purposive interpretation
Read more in the study notes
- Judgment and decree: definitions, kinds, and Order XX (Civil Procedure Code and Limitation Act)
- Free consent: coercion and undue influence (Contract I)
- Inventive Step and Non-Obviousness (IPR I)
- Legal reasoning, the growth of law and the balance of stability and change (Judicial and Legislative Process)
- Legislative drafting: stages, structure and devices (Judicial and Legislative Process)
- The historical school: Savigny, Puchta and Maine (Jurisprudence)