The evolution of the concept of the right to inheritance of illegitimate children including the recent juridical reform under Maltese law

Abstract

This thesis consists, mainly, in five chapters, dealing with the substantive part. Chapter I shall provide an explanation of who, at law, is an illegitimate child, explaining also the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate issue. Chapter II has the scope of briefly listing and describing the various dominations through which Malta was subject throughout the centuries. This is intended to help the reader understand better the influence, or lack of influence, as the case may be, of these dominations over Maltese Civil Law, hence Maltese Law of Succession, since Roman times. This chapter also explains what were the rights of succession of illegitimate children under the Code de Rohan and the reform that occurred in 1864 by virtue of Ordinance 4of1864. Chapter III then contains an explanation of the law of succession in regard to illegitimate children as presently as exists Under the Civil Code. The scope of Chapter III is to merely delineate and provide an explanation of the law and how the rights of succession illegitimate children differ from those of legitimate children. It shall be the scope of Chapter IV to treat the underlying discrimination in the Law of Succession regards illegitimate children, and also to show what have been the implications of a recent decision delivered by the Maltese Civil Court, determining also whether reform is required. Chapter IV also deals with the Constitutional aspect of the subject-matter at issue. Chapter V provides a compendium foreign legal systems that have carried out or are in process of carrying out such reform, thereby providing a comparative study. Chapter VI, finally, provides for the manner in which a reform may be carried out and what it would entail.