Research On Discretionary Heritage Distribution System

The system of Discretionary Heritage Distribution is a system that people who are not the inheritor can claim for legacy properly depending on the relationship of maintenance with the decedent after the decedent having died. The Article 14 of the Succession Law of the People’s Republic of China provides it. As the protection to persons other than the successors, the system provided protection for those who neither can work nor has a source of income and who support the ancestor. But, because of the legal defect, there is no unifying understanding of the law in practice, which influences its function display.The article begins with the basic theory of the system. On this basis, the paper analyzes the present system of our country. Then the paper analyzes the legal defect of our country and put forward some suggestions to perfect the law.Besides introduction and conclusion, this paper has about 22,000 words and is divided into four parts.The first part is the theory of the system. Firstly, this paper expounds the concept and characteristics. Then the paper briefly reviewed the historical roots of it. Secondly, the paper discussed the right’s two functions. On the one hand, the system conforms to the consistent principle of right and duties; On the other hand, it can provide for the aged and children.The second part discusses the system in our country at present. This part mainly includes four questions: the premise of the system’s application, the right body and the exertion and protection of the right.The third part discusses the defects of current law in our country. This part based on the real cases in judicial practice and analyzed the existing law defects on the nature of the right, the subject range of the right, the identification standard of right subject, the share of legacy distribution and the exertion and protection of the right.The fourth part which corresponds to the third part puts forward some suggestions about the system to perfect the law. The suggestions are as follows: Firstly, the law should clear the nature of the right and that the supporters’ right can be inherited and the dependents’ right can not. Secondly, in terms of the right subject, this paper argued that the right subject are the people who are not the inheritor and analyzed the constitutive requirements of the right of claiming for legacy distribution deeply and increased the requirement of “Do not get the bequest”. Thirdly, in terms of the share of legacy distribution, the paper discussed the subject separately and thought that there are four factors should be considered when we determine the share of legacy distribution, including situation of the dependents, the condition of the supporters, the amount of the heritage and the situation of the heir. At last, in terms of the exertion of the right, the paper thinks that our law should perfect the exertion of person without or with limited capacity for civil conduct and solve the problem of no inheritance through the system of legacy caretaker. About the period of the right’s exertion, the paper suggested that we should increase the deadline of the exertion and modify the provisions of the litigation prescription.