احكام الميراث الالكتروني "دراسة مقارنة"
Date
2020-06-07
Authors
محمد فخري موسى ابوعياش
Mohammad Fakhri Abu Ayyash
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Al-Quds University
Abstract
This study handles the subject of the electronic inheritance provisions, which is considered the new birth of digital life. Globally, humans have increased their usage of digital devices and they have become enormously attached to these digital electronics, where the majority acquire email accounts or social media accounts such as; Facebook, twitter, etcetera. In general, the life of people including their work, ideas and relationships have become present in this virtual world which pushes relatives after the death of their heir to request access to the owner accounts. Therefore, the electronic inheritance became as one of the most vital legal topics proposed for research lately, and this led to a Jurisprudential, lawful and community arguments where there were supporters and opponents considering that electronic inheritance violates the right to privacy especially in Western communities
This research addresses an important problem that focuses on electronic inheritance while aiming to demonstrate its provisions, as we in the Arab community used to talk about inheritance from a legitimacy point of view; the problem of this study is exemplified through the following questions:
Will digital accounts become a right for the heirs after the death of its owner? Also, to what extent it is compatible with the right of its owner
to possess it? And how compatible is that with the modern concepts of privacy and human rights such as the right of humans to be forgotten. To respond to these questions, the researcher had to follow the comparative approach that consists of description and analysis.
Moreover, the researcher explains the general principles of inheritance as a reason for transfer of ownership, and then clarifies the concept of electronic inheritance since this concept at first is believed to fall under the provisions of intellectual property which is not the case. The electronic inheritance is a modern concept that address the ownership of the user for the digital accounts such as the personal page on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or email and the possibility of being transferred to the heirs but does not basically address the ownership of the websites of these digital accounts. For example, the ownership of
Facebook site falls under the intellectual property provisions which is not the case for the ownership of the user personal page on this site and the same applies to the email account.
Then the researcher discussed the modern concepts in human rights such as the right to forget, right to privacy and its compatibility with electronic inheritance where there were different Jurisprudential trends regarding compatibility of digital inheritance with the provisions of traditional inheritance.
Likewise, the researcher presented special legislations, Jurisprudential opinions and analysis the legal texts in the United States, some European Union countries and others in order to create a legal conception of electronic inheritance and to set the base for the first study in Palestine according to the limits of the researcher's knowledge. The researcher finally came up with a group of legal and practical recommendations which beneficiaries can benefit of and on top is the Palestinian National legislator.