A Comparative Study Of Legal Heir System Between Four Scope Of Law In China

Legal succession system, as a major constituent of Succession Law, has been always the emphasis of the academic’s research. In legal succession system, provisions of legal heir should be taken the first consideration, because it includes the scope、sequence and share of the legal heir, which directly decides how to distribute the heritage of the intestate. In 1985，mainland of China formulated and promulgated "the Succession Law of the People’s Republic of China", which has played a important role in building legal succession system and adjusting legal relationship of inheritance in the last thirty years. But during nearly thirty years, the economy and society of China has undergone enormous changes, so as family structure. In another side, Hong Kong and Macao has returned to the embrace of motherland, the cross-strait reunification has become the historical choice, China has changed from a single legal region country to a multiple legal regions country, people in China mainland has more communication with people in Hong Kong、Macao and Taiwan, all of these changes has made inheritance problem increasingly prominent. In this context, how to modify and perfect succession law has great value both theoretically and practically. This paper attempts to study legal heir systems between China mainland and other three scope of law comparatively in view of marital relationship and blood relationship, which is the basis of the legal succession, and discuss the rationality of taking the dependency relation as the basis to determine the scope of legal heir, hoping to give some advice for perfecting the legal heir system.This paper includes three chapters, include more than 38000 words altogether:In chapter one, the author introduces the stipulation of legal heir in legal succession systems in Hong Kong、Macao and Taiwan. Through the analysis, the author concludes that although the stipulation of legal heir system in Hong Kong、 Macao and Taiwan seems much differences, but there has some similarities in the aspect of the reversion of spouse、the reversion of stepparents and stepchildren and subrogation-inherit of lineal descent.In chapter two, the author discuss the legislation status of legal heir system in mainland of China, research legal heir systems of China mainland through a comparative study with other three legal regions, finally conclude the differences of inheritance heir of China mainland and the other three legal regions in macro and micro.In chapter three, the author discuss the necessity to amend the legal heir system of China mainland, and introduce the different views in academic circle, though drawing on the experiences of the stipulations in the other scope of law and the views of the scholars, giving the suggestions for amending the provisions of legal heir system of China mainland from the aspect of spouse 、consanguinity and daughter-in-law or son-in-law whose spouse has been dead, to contribute to the improvement of our country’s legal heir system.