Status - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition status

Definition :

Status. The legal position or condition of a person. in Roman law this term indicated the position of a persona. A full Roman citizen must have possessed the status liberatatis, famili', and civitatis, which are sometimes called tria capita. See Sandars' Justinian; Mackenzie's Roman Law, 4th Edn. p. 81. The law of status thus classified men as slaves and free, citizens and aliens-as equals and unequals, so that it may be called the law of inequality. Much in the same way the term 'status' is used at the pesent time in connection with the law of persons, in which connection it signifies some disability or special right or treatment by the law.

In Scotland, with few exceptions, actions affecting status must be brought in the Court of Session.

Status determines a person's legal condition in community by reference to some legal calls or group and cannot normally be voluntarily changed. The imposition of status carries with it attribution of a fixed quota of capacity and incapacities, but it does not direct compel the holder to do or refrain from doing any particular act, Sri Mahalinga Thambiran Swamigal v. His Holiness Sri La Sri Kasivasi Arulnandi Thambiran Swamigal, AIR 1974 SC 199: (1974) 1 SCC 150: (1974) 2 SCR 74.