No one shall be compelled unwillingly into a status.
A status in law is not merely a description. It is a legal condition carrying with it a defined set of rights, obligations, duties, and liabilities. Taxpayer, debtor, driver, defendant, trustee – each is a status, and each brings consequences the law attaches to whoever holds it.
This maxim stands for the proposition that a status must be accepted, not imposed. A man or woman who has not knowingly and willingly stepped into a legal status has not acquired it. Association with a name, a number, or a document that carries a status is not acceptance of that status. Answering to a label is not consent to its legal consequences. Silence in the face of an assumption is not agreement to be bound by it.
The maxim does not say a man or woman can never hold a status. It says they cannot be compelled into one against their will. Where a status has been attached by presumption, without disclosure, without genuine consent, and without the knowledge required to make consent meaningful, the foundation of that attachment is not law. It is assumption.
Assumption, properly challenged, must be proven. The burden falls on the party asserting the status, not on the man or woman who denies having accepted it.
Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. The burden of proof lies on he who asserts, not he who denies.
See also The INFORMATION PAPERS
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