Illegitimacy and Claims to Money and Other Property: A Comparative Survey

Abstract

IN February 1964, the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Scotland set up a committee under the chairmanship of Sir Charles Russell, a Lord Justice of Appeal, to consider and report whether any alterations are desirable in the law of succession to property in England and Wales and in Scotland in relation to illegitimate persons. This article is based on evidence submitted by the writer in response to a press notice and relates to changes in English law which seem desirable in the light of the rules operative in other jurisdictions. The Russell Committee has not yet issued its report, but the fact that such an inquiry should be made in England is itself eloquent of the agonies of reappraisal of some of our most deep-seated institutions. Deprivation of property rights is a time-honoured sanction for offences against society's rules regarding marriage and sexual intercourse. The rules about capacity to marry are themselves largely affected by the need to provide for an orderly succession to property, including that epitome of property rights, the chieftainship or kingship of people tracing their origin from a common ancestor, whether they inhabit a particular area or not. The modern concentration on the welfare of the individual has