The Study Of Intestate Heirs’ Scope And Sequence In China

Since The Law of Succession has been promulgated and implemented in China,the problems of succession have its legal basis. In a long historical period, therelevant provisions of the law demonstrate the necessity and effectiveness of itsexistence. However, with the continuous development of market-economy and socialprogress as well as the depth of judicial practice currently, the citizens now have anew review to the concept of individual rights. Due to the development and changesof the times, in addition to the ownership of private property of people has beenprotected by the Constitution, people’s legal concept and the awareness of rights areincreasing. Inheritance rights has been closely related to people, and for the presenttime, intestate succession still takes the main place of ways of succession. And theheirs’ scope and sequence is the main problem of inheritance succession, itsperfection and design not only impacts the trend of the law of succession, but alsorelates to the vital interests of the masses of the people.The economic determines the super-structure, so the setting of the legal systemis also determined by the socio-economic on which they depend. The Law ofSuccession has been promulgated and implemented for decades, but now it appearsmany problems and shortcomings gradually, especially the provisions of intestateheirs’ scope and sequence, for example, whether the grand-child should have therights to inherit or not; and the widowed daughter-in-law and widowed son-in-law’sinheritance rights reasonable or not; and whether it should further expand the scope,strengthening the rights of the spouse or giving the children’s inheritance rightspriority to the parents’, etc. Thus, all these series of questions and problems havetaken much more controversy and concern. Therefore, in view of resolving theurgency and necessity of these problems, eliminating the backwardness,one-sidedness and closed to meet the new situations in China. So, it is particularlyimportant to launch a theoretical discussion of the problems of the intestate heirs’scope and sequence widely and deeply. Therefore, this article attempts to commence with intestate heirs’ scope andsequence of China, giving a brief introduction of these questions, mainly from theconcepts and characteristics of the scope and sequence. Then this thesis will analyzeits applicable conditions and research the theoretical basis of inheritance rights,focusing on current basic foundations, namely marital relationship, consanguinity anddependency relations. And then introduce them in detail, as well as the otherinfluencing factors. On the basis of the study, this paper will give a furthermulti-faceted analysis of intestate heirs’ scope and sequence, elaborating thelegislative provisions. Meanwhile, it will also try to find the further differencesbetween the provisions and the traditions and custom of intestate heirs’ scope andsequence, after expounding the inherited habits and custom in China, in order toselect the useful traditional practices to improve the provisions of the legislation.Through summarizing the arguments above, it can be seen that there are numerousserious problems and deficiencies of intestate heirs’ scope and sequence in thelegislative design. So, this article will present a detailed analysis of the problems inlegislative issues, mainly analyzing the questions of whether and how to expand thescope and what range the scope is appropriated, then according to the scope to adjustthe order of succession. At last, it will put forward legislative suggestions for theperfection and improvement, hoping to give a conclusion to adapt to China’s currentstatus and circumstances and make a little contribution to amend the legislativeprovisions and promote the judicial practice.