Research On Stepchildren Inheritance Right System Of China

The Inheritance Law of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as"inheritance law") began to implement in1985. The law stripped the relevant provisions aboutinheritance in the original marriage law and systematically stipulate the inheritance relationshipof our country. The inheritance rights and obligations between stepparents and children hasalso evolved from a single stipulation to a more elaborate specification, but unfortunately onlyprovisions increased and there was little change in the substance. The nature of thespecification remains applying the inheritance stipulation between parents and children to thatbetween stepparents and their children. A good law should be able to balance the interests ofall the parties concerned and the inheritance law is no exception. Only balance the interests ofall parties including the heir, the deceased and others who are related to the inheritance canitadapt the development of the society, maintain the solidarity of the family and safeguard thestability of the social order. And as for the inheritance rights of the stepchildren, the followingparties may involve in the interests including parents, birth parents, stepchildren, biologicalchildren and even the other legal heirs and how to balance the interests of them, maintain theharmony of families are all needed to be addressed, no doubt,by the inheritance law.China’s existing laws stipulate that the stepchildren who have formed the fosterrelationship with their stepfather or stepmother enjoy the mutual legal inheritance rights withtheir stepparents. However, there has been two diametrically opposed views from theperspective of theory, namely affirmative theory and negative theory. Comparing the twotheories laterally, I believe that in accordance with the nature of inheritance law the inheritancerights of the stepchildren should be retained and be imposed on restraction strictly to complywith the principle of rights and obligations being compatible.If you want to study China’s inheritance rights system of the stepchildren, you must dosome investigation about the relationship between the stepparents and stepchildren whichdirectly determines the presence or absence of a step-child’s inheritance rights. This paper will start from the basic content and historical evolution of China inheritance rights system ofthe stepchildren to comprehend the meaning, characteristics and historical developmentprocess of China’s inheritance rights system of the stepchildren, distinguish the distinctionsbetween lineal consanguinity and legal fiction lineal relative and further divided the latter intoadoption and raising type stepparent-child relationship and finally understand that the scope ofthis study is limited to the raising type. And then do some investigation about the academiccontroversy about the inheritance rights system of the stepchildren. I will start with thecomparative study of the two opinions about the existence or abolishment of China’sinheritance rights of the stepchildren and then evaluate and analyze the two opinions and thencontinue to discuss our social foundation and legal basis of the existence of the inheritancerights of the stepchildren. And then explore and analyze the inheritance rights system of thestepchildren of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries analyzing the currentsituations of these regions and countries and the problems existed in a few countries findingout the differences compared to China’s current laws and judicial interpretation. Combinedwith the current situation of China’s inheritance rights of the stepchildren and the deficienciesof that existed in previous studies—on the one hand, China’s existing laws stipulate a narrowscope of the stepchildren who have the foster relationship with their stepparents and there areno specific criterions of the foster relationship between the stepchildren and their stepparents,which will easily lead to uncertain situations of law application, on the other hand, the dualinheritance rights stipulated by the inheritance law is very difficult to achieve and it isunclear whether the stepchildren can enjoy the subrogation inheritance rights, whichundermines the authority of the law and violate the predictability of the law. Finally based onthe discuss above, I make recommendations to improve the inheritance rights of stepchildren,namely defining the scope of the raising type stepchildren and conditions on which thestepchildren and their stepparents form the fostering relationship, adjusting the inheritancerights between the stepchildren and their stepparents and expressly providing that thestepchildren do not enjoy the inheritance rights of subrogation but entitled to the person who issubrogated.