Executive Summary was prepared by Ms. Yury Mejia, associate attorney of DMK Abogados and professor at the PCMM.
On May 18, 2023, the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic (hereinafter The Constitutional Court) issued judgment TC/0267/23, which annuls Article 767 of the Dominican Civil Code, regarding the succession of marital property and institutes new criteria.
The TC considered that this legal provision violates Articles 38 and 55 of the Constitution, on human dignity and family rights because it essentially denies the possibility of inheritance to the surviving spouse. In this sense, the TC urged the National Congress to legislate, as of the notification of the sentence, at the latest within a term of two years, regarding the configuration of the figure of the surviving spouse and/or the surviving consensual partner as the regular successor of the deceased, providing that, if at the expiration of such term the National Congress has not enacted the corresponding legislation, Article 767 of the Civil Code is null and void with all its effects.
The Dominican Constitutional Court accepted a direct action of unconstitutionality filed on June nineteenth (19), two thousand nineteen (2019) by Mr. Gabriel Santos against Article 767 of the Civil Code.
At the outset, it is important to remember, that the direct action of unconstitutionality is filed before the Constitutional Court against laws, decrees, regulations, resolutions and ordinances, which infringe by action or omission, any substantive rule, the foregoing in accordance with the provisions of Article 36 of the Organic Law of the Constitutional Court and procedures (No. 137-11 of June 15, 2011).
Hence, the referred law establishes that the direct action in unconstitutionality may be filed, at the request of the President of the Republic, of one-third of the members of the Senate or of the Chamber of Deputies and of any person with a legitimate and legally protected interest (Article 37 of the referred Law).
In the case at hand, by means of the direct action of unconstitutionality, the aforementioned party requested that Article 767 of the Civil Code be declared not in conformity with the Constitution, under the argument that the recognition of the surviving spouse as an irregular successor, contravenes the fundamental rights to human dignity and the family.
It is well known that Article 767 of the Civil Code states: “If the deceased does not leave relatives in a capable degree of succession or natural children, the assets constituting his succession belong to the surviving spouse”.
For its part, the TC considered that this legal provision contravenes articles 38 and 55 of the Constitution, on human dignity and the rights of the family, because it denies inheritance vocation to the surviving spouse.
Among the main facts that motivated the unconstitutionality action of the plaintiff, i.e. Mr. Gabriel Santos, the following are highlighted:
- Dr. Gabriel Santos, about 78 years old, who was married for 44 years to Mrs. Gladis Virginia Del Giudice Knipping, whose succession is the subject of this case, was forced to bring a direct action for the unconstitutionality of Article 767 of the Civil Code, on the grounds that said the article “closes all options by providing those relatives with the capacity to succeed him displace him from the succession of his wife”.
- In this sense, it was stated that the privileged collaterals had the saisine[1] and the plaintiff had no other possibility but to exercise this action directly.
- As an aggravating circumstance, the plaintiff alleged that the siblings of the plaintiff were aiming to appropriate an estate that they were aware was the product of the plaintiff’s efforts, since his sister did not work; therefore, the plaintiff acknowledged that the plaintiff, as his life partner, deserved everything and that the amounts saved were possible thanks to her frugal spirit; but the provisions of the attacked Article 767 contrasts with the principle of human dignity, because even if it is established that the savings were all of the de cujus, it is unworthy that the collaterals occupy a preferential place before her husband in her succession.
- The Certificates that the collaterals sought to redeem were contracted by the applicant for the purpose of favoring his wife in the event of his death before her; the applicant could have warned his wife of the latent danger represented by the formula and/or in the financial certificates; but concerned in dying before her, he acknowledges having assumed the risk that he sought to legitimize through the aforementioned direct action in unconstitutionality.
Regarding the law, the most important legal arguments that were able to move the decision of the TC were:
- That according to the provisions of Article 767 of the Civil Code, the person who has decided to constitute a family, only has the right to the succession of the deceased person, if the latter does not leave relatives in able degree to succeed.
- That the occupation of the privileged collaterals (or any other relative outside the nuclear family) of a preferential position to that of the spouse of the deceased to opt for the inheritance was considered unfair, since it gives those who have not participated in the creation of the estate of the spouses, the right to take possession of it in a gracious manner, disrespecting their dignity, violating in turn Article 38 of the Constitution in force. Based on such arguments, Mr. Gabriel Santos censures the favoring of the family constituted by the parents of the deceased to the detriment of the security of the family created by the de cujus with the surviving spouse.
- That the order of succession provided for in the Civil Code contravenes the family structure established by the constituent in our current fundamental law, and therefore Article 767 of the Civil Code should be annulled for contravening Article 55 of the current constitution.
- It was exposed how the Legislative Power has committed an unconstitutionality by omission, by not having enacted a law to regulate the institution of the family conceived by the referred Article 55 of our supreme norm.
- The recognition of family law, without a law to regulate it, is contradicted by creating situations of abuse and/or violence within the family.
From the reasoning of the law and considering the facts, the arguments of the parties, the evidence submitted, the law, and the observation of comparative law of other countries on the matter, the TC was able to verify how Article 767 of the Civil Code is incompatible with the essential conditions for the protection of human dignity in the family sphere since it departs from the spirit of the constituent that consecrates the institution of marriage as the cross-cutting axis of the family.
Consequently, the TC accepted the direct action of unconstitutionality filed by Mr. Gabriel Santos against Article 767 of the Civil Code. In short, the judges of the Constitutional Court recognized that the current social, constitutional, legal, and jurisprudential reality of the Dominican Republic reflects the need to adopt a new regime regarding the succession vocation of the surviving spouse, respecting the exercise of the legal reserve contemplated in numeral 3 of Article 55 of the Dominican Constitution.
From the foregoing, as the Constitutional Court emphasized in reaching its conclusion, it follows that the surviving spouse is in a situation of alarming vulnerability since the law places him/her in a practically unattainable degree for inheritance purposes. Hence, the decision was issued based on how the law establishes conditions for the exercise of his rights, since on the one hand, it is required that the deceased has not left descendants or their representation, in a practically infinite degree, and on the other hand, that the deceased has not left ascendants or collaterals in a degree capable of succeeding.
In this regard, the Constitutional Court stated in sentence TC-0267-23, issued on May 18, 2023, the following: “We base this criterion on the lack of any legal mechanism in the current scheme of the succession order of said legal body aimed at preserving the security of the surviving spouse, ignoring and obviating his or her contribution to the increase of the common mass of assets fostered during the marriage”.
Additionally, it was determined that the recognition of the inheritance right in favor of the surviving consensual partner is required, in accordance with the capital part and numeral 5 of the fundamental law, which contemplates the figure of the de facto marital union.
As a consequence of the decision, the TC deferred the effects of the unconstitutionality, exhorting the National Congress in the sentence itself to legislate within a term of two years, as from the notification of the same, regarding the configuration of the figure of the surviving spouse and/or the surviving consensual partner as the regular successor of the deceased, in the order that the legislative body deems convenient. Provided that if at the expiration of said term, the National Congress has not enacted the appropriate legislation, Article 767 of the Civil Code shall become null and void with all its effects.
Finally, in view of this important precedent, in this recent sentence, the TC recalled and left embodied in the same the necessary recognition of the reality of the Dominican Civil Code, which comes from the translation and adaptation of its French counterpart, which was recognized as national law by Decree 2213, dated April 17, 1884. Consequently, it is recognized and evidenced that as a result of the evident political, constitutional, and social evolution of the Dominican Republic in the last century, it concerns the Legislative Power to adapt the legal texts that make up the legal system, with the purpose of adapting the legal instruments established to regulate the relations between individuals according to the new demands presented by the new times of life in society.
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