{"id":9625,"date":"2023-06-29T16:28:47","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T16:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dmklawyers.com\/?p=9625"},"modified":"2023-06-29T17:20:23","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T17:20:23","slug":"direct-action-of-unconstitutionality-brought-by-mr-gabriel-santos-against-article-767-of-the-civil-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmklawyers.com\/en\/direct-action-of-unconstitutionality-brought-by-mr-gabriel-santos-against-article-767-of-the-civil-code\/","title":{"rendered":"Direct action of unconstitutionality brought by Mr. Gabriel Santos against Article 767 of the Civil Code"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Executive Summary was prepared by Ms. Yury Mejia, associate attorney of DMK Abogados and professor at the PCMM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the main facts that motivated the unconstitutionality action of the plaintiff, i.e. Mr. Gabriel Santos, the following are highlighted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n