An Empirical Study On The Reasons For Invalidation Of A Will

The Succession Law of the People’s Republic of China was implemented on October 1,1985 and has been in force for 34 years.Over the past 30 years,China’s social,economic,cultural and other aspects of development,can be described as rapid progress.The problems in the field of inheritance are different from those faced in the legislation of the Inheritance Law.New types of wills,such as printed wills and network wills,which are not explicitly stipulated in the Inheritance Law,appear in large numbers.In addition,because people’s concept of marriage and family has undergone tremendous changes,family relations have become more and more complex,and people’s wealth has increased significantly,and the structure of property is diverse.More and more people deal with pre-natal property by will,and there is a clear upward trend in testamentary inheritance disputes.Through the search of "testamentary inheritance" as the keyword in China Judicial Documents Network,we know that in the 15 years from 2003 to 2018,there were 27845 first-instance judgments on testamentary inheritance that can be consulted nationwide,of which 5530 were found to be invalid,accounting for 19.85%.Of the 5 530 will invalidation judgments,3336 were in the eastern coastal areas,and 1111 were in Shanghai alone.It can be seen that the first instance judgment that the testament is invalid occupies nearly one fourth of the first instance judgment on testamentary succession,and is relatively concentrated in the eastern coastal areas.In this proportion,the reasons are worth exploring.The purpose of this paper is to analyze the reasons for the invalidation of testament by taking the first instance judgment of the invalidation of testament in the eastern coastal areas as a sample.Through the Chinese Judicial Documents Network,this paper searches for 1922 judgments on the determination of invalidity of Testament from 2016 to 2018 in four key words;civil disputes,Testament succession,invalidity of Testament and first instance.Since the retrieval method of the Judicial Documents Network is not manual,1922 data obtained by keyword retrieval,including the citation of the legal provisions of "nullity of will" and the parties’assertion of "nullity of will",were screened one by one,excluding 1037 of the 1922 judgments which have less relationship with the main purpose of empirical research in this paper,885 will-free judgments were obtained.The 885 first instance judgments are the samples of this empirical study.The article is divided into four parts:The first part is the introduction,which introduces the background,significance,key points,difficulties and possible innovations of this paper.At the same time,it introduces the background,methods,theoretical basis and content design of the investigation,the selection of the subjects and the reasons.The second part summarizes the current situation and main problems of the validity determination of wills investigated.The third part is to explore the reasons for the determination of the invalidity of testament:1.The priority of notarized Testament results in the invalidity of testament without notarization;2.The lack of testament Witness Qualification leads to the invalidity of testament;3.The requirement of testament form is too strict;4.The criteria for determining the "critical situation" of oral Testament are unclear and indefinite.The fourth part is based on the results of this empirical investigation and research,put forward suggestions to prevent the invalidation of testament:clear the criteria for determining the "critical situation" of oral Testament and stipulate the time limit;cancel the provisions on the priority effect of notarized testament;clarify the qualifications of testament witness,expand the scope of testament witness;recognize new forms of Testament and stipulate the mitigation of testament form.