Comparative Perspectives

Abstract

Abstract Today freedom of testation is qualified, in most countries of the world, by a degree of mandatory family protection. Broadly speaking, that protection can be delivered either by a system of fixed shares (such as forced heirship or compulsory portion), or by the court-based discretionary system which is often known as ‘family provision’. In fixed-share systems, certain family members (especially the surviving spouse and children) are protected merely because they are family members; in discretionary systems there is often an additional requirement of financial need. Fixed-share systems dominate in the civil law countries of Europe, South America, and the Far East as well as in Islamic countries and the Nordic countries; discretionary systems are found mainly in England and in the common law world more generally. The range of potential beneficiaries varies from system to system and country to country, but today includes the surviving spouse and children as well as, often, civil partners, cohabitants and even dependants. Each system has opposing strengths and weaknesses: fixed-share systems are predictable but inflexible; discretionary systems are flexible but unpredictable. Each system has sought various means to temper its weakness. Amidst general satisfaction with mandatory family provision, there have also been reforms and calls for more reform. In fixed-share systems there is support for moving, in whole or in part, to a system of judicial discretion. There is little demand, in discretionary systems, for a move in the other direction.