THE SUCCESSORY UNWORTHINESS RELATED TO THE CRIME OF MURDERING THE DECEDENT
THE SUCCESSORY UNWORTHINESS RELATED TO THE CRIME OF MURDERING THE DECEDENT

Summary/Abstract: The 2009 Civil Code reconfigured the institution of inheritance indignity, taking into account existing doctrinal critiques as well as the inconsistent judicial solutions. Thus, certain imperfections, such as those related to criminal conviction, have been addressed. The absence of a criminal conviction ruling for the author who committed one of the acts provided under Article 958 (a) and (b) of the Civil Code, due to the statute of limitations, amnesty, or the author's death, does not lead to the removal of inheritance indignity. The current regulation allows the application of indignity based on a final civil court decision, which is tasked with establishing the act when a criminal conviction cannot be rendered. The law punishes with disinheritance only the heir who intentionally sought to kill the person whose inheritance is in question or to remove another heir who is called before them to inherit de cujus. The 2009 Civil Code, being responsive to the critiques in the legal literature regarding this essential negative condition necessary to inherit from the deceased, as well as to the jurisprudential solutions that were not always consistent, regulated inheritance indignity under Articles 958-961 of Chapter II, Title I of Book IV. Although the 2009 legislator did not provide a definition of inheritance indignity, from the provisions regulating this civil sanction, we can infer that inheritance indignity refers to the disqualification of a legal or testamentary heir, both from the right to inherit the share of the deceased’s estate that is due to them and from the right to inherit the reserved portion they would have been entitled to under the law, had they not been guilty of any of the acts expressly and exhaustively provided in Articles 958-959 of the Civil Code.

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