A legal fiction is a fact assumed or created by courts which is then used in order to apply a legal rule which was not necessarily designed to be used in that way. For example, the rules of the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament specify that a Member of Parliament cannot resign from office, but since the law also states that a Member of Parliament who is appointed to a paid office of the Crown must either step down or stand for re-election, the effect of a resignation can be accomplished by appointment to such an office. The second rule is used to circumvent the first rule.
Legal fictions may be counterintuitive in the sense that one might not normally view a certain fact or idea as established in the course of everyday life, but they are preserved to advance public policy and preserve the rights of certain individuals and institutions. A common example of a legal fiction is a corporation, which is regarded in many jurisdictions as a 'person' that has many of the same legal rights and responsibilities as a natural person.
Legal fictions are mostly encountered under common law systems.
The term "legal fiction" is not usually used in a pejorative way, and has been likened to scaffolding around a building under construction.
Read more about Legal Fiction: The Dying Out of Fictions, Philosophical Arguments, Legal Fictions Used in Fiction, Limitations On The Use of Legal Fictions
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