A Study About The Rational Cores Of Us Testamentary Inheritance System And Its References To China’s Testamentary Inheritance Law

Along with the social progress and the increase of people’s legal awareness, people more and more eagerly want to deal with their testament by testament. Our Inheritance Law has been established for more than20years, however. The social economic conditions have changed greatly compared with the original conditions in1985, when Inheritance Law was born. China’s economic has developed rapidly. Private property has increased continuously. China’s current Inheritance Law increasingly demonstrates its inadaptability to economic development. There are some flaws. In judicial practice, the inevitable drawbacks are harming the legitimate rights of the heirs, to some extent. The American testamentary inheritance system is detailed in content, and operable in practice.It maintains the interests of the survival spouse and the heir. With the study of the American testamentary inheritance system, I would like to learn useful legislative experience, combine with China’s reality, point out some of the legislative shortcomings in our system, and propose amendments and recommendations to improve our inheritance system.After the introduction in the first chapter, in the second chapter of the thesis, I first outlined the basic concepts of testamentary inheritance, and then expounded the principle of testamentary freedom and its legitimacy. Also I emphasized defects in testamentary freedom by analyzing some typical cases in judicial practice, as well as comparatively analyzed the present restrictions on testamentary freedom at home and abroad. In the third chapter, I analyzed three characteristics of the American testamentary inheritance system in detail. The main contents of Chapter IV are the legislation defects in our testamentary inheritance system.Having proposed problems which need to improve, combining with advanced legislative experience in some countries and regions, in Chapter V, I discussed valuable references of American testamentary inheritance system to improving China’s related legislation, so to make our testamentary inheritance system more close to the public, better solve conflicts and disputes, and give full play to the guidance functions of our Inheritance Law.