5 Legal Personality of the Dead Person

The general rule is stark: death extinguishes legal personality — actio personalis moritur cumpersona (a personal action dies with the person) in its classic sphere. A corpse is not a person; in the main common-law tradition it is quasi-property of no one, held by the executor for burial.Yet the law spreads a net of interests around the dead:1. Reputation of the deceased — most systems are chary of defamation of the dead (the dead cannot be libelled, English law says), but many civil-law systems and codes penalize gross insult to the memory of the dead; relatives may sue for outrage/insult to their own feelings rather than the deceased's "right."2. The body and its disposal — statutes regulate organ donation (requiring pre-mortem consent or next-of-kin authorization), autopsy, exhumation; interference with a corpse and burial grounds is an offence (Nepal's Criminal Code 2074 criminalizes unlawful interference with dead bodies and graves).3. Testamentary directions — the will is the dead hand still governing the living; funeral rites, religious endowments (shraaddha obligations, guthi endowments in Nepal) and perpetual trusts give the deceased a scripted posthumous "voice," though subject to the rule against perpetuities-type limits (Nepali law limits how long property can be tied up for charitable/ religious purposes).4. Interests of the estate — not the dead person, but the estate (a new juridical person…