The aim of this article is to define more precisely the term of the Socialist right of succession on one hand, and to point out, on the other hand, the fact that the category of universal succession which until now has formed the basis of this definition, is losing its significance. The starting points of the analysis are formally logical deliberations on the definition of the right of succession. From them it follows that the so far traditional definition of the right of succession as the universal succession mortis causa eliminates from this term all cases of singular succession which are admissible under the present legal form. In the following historically oriented part, an explanation of the development and function of the idea of universality is given, which had its origin in the ancient Roman law. Though it originally served as a form of transferring all the personal power within the family, not only of the property rights, in the further development it could be accepted by the bourgeois law on the Continent of Europe, since it perfectly secured the continuity of property relations within the society. At the outset of the bourgeois society, the property constituted a harmonic system of things complementing each other – i.e. a property of homogenous type, and thus it was natural that it was transferred in its entirety. In the next stage of the monopolist capitalism, when property changed into that of heterogenous type, another aspect of universal succession emerged, which ensured the subsistence of the idea. It effectively secures the interest of creditors to satisfy possible claims on the inheritance There was a different development in the sphere of the Anglo-Saxon law, which stems from a different arrangement of proprietary relations. The category of universal succession has also been taken over by the Socialist law, and manifests itself especially indirectly, in its consequences. Recently, both in legal literature and in practice, there are tendencies indicating its weakening. The analysis of these views as well as the consequences of the idea of universal succession in legal orders and during its application in the individual Socialist countries constitutes the core of the article. There is a reference to the necessity of acceptance or rejection of inheritance as a whole, and the rule of acrescense of the disengaged shares of inheritance, which raise certain problems in connection with the differentiation between the private and personal ownerships. The article ends with several hypothetical views about the development and tendencies in a juristic modification of the problem. A greater differentiation is assumed in the methods of transferring the property of individuals in case of death, which is connected with the shift onto new legal forms of satisfying the material and cultural needs of the citizens. As a rule, these forms enable greater interference of the society into the individual sphere which stems from the growing dependence of the individual on the society. Also some recent findings in the sphere of ecology and demography are in harmony with such an assumed development. A relatively growing population, a decrease in energy and raw-material resources, a lack of food, an exhaustion of agricultural soil and a pollution of the milieu are the facts which will affect the increase of a control by the whole society also over the sphere of the necessaries of life of the individuals.
Vojtěch Cepl (Fri,) studied this question.