Current trends in the development of succession law principles

Abstract

In a legal system, each branch of law has its fundamental rules, the guiding principles which serve as the cornerstone for developing the entire structure of constituent legal norms for regulating a range of related social relations. Being part of the civil law family, succession law is no exception as it adapts its basic principles to the basic principles of civil law, the requirements of the legal tradition, and the needs of society in a specific period of its development. As evident in the Civil Code of the Republic of France (the part regulating succession relations), the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (the part regulating succession rights), and the Succession Act of the Republic of Serbia, the basic principles of succession law are envisaged in different parts of legal texts. They are difficult to locate and correlate in a legal and logical whole, which ultimately aggravates their application in practice. Relying on the legal dogmatics, legal history, normative law and comparative law methods, the paper examines the basic principles of contemporary French, Russian and Serbian succession law through a prism of theoretic concepts, legal solutions and jurisprudence (judicial practice). They are analyzed in terms of their meaning and reach in regulating succession law relations. Given the fact that Russian, French and Serbian succession law provisions have been amended a number of times, this paper aims to cast more light on the current trends in the development of the basic succession law principles in order to determine a further direction in the development of succession law regulations in these countries.

Keywords

• russian law
• french law
• serbian law
• basic succession law principles