An injustice finally corrected

Mmegi Editor | Tuesday August 5, 2014 11:54

Judges Legwaila, Lesetedi and Howie ruled that the children of a deceased man had legal rights to his estate, despite the fact that he was not married to their mother.

What ostensibly appears as a matter of course, has in fact been a generational thorn in the flesh, with countless tales of children being dispossessed of their deceased’s parents’ estates, often at the hands of other relatives. In many instances, a parent dies without having formally married their partner either customarily or officially, and relatives swoop in to seize assets using the technicality that the lack of a marriage dissolves the children’s right to an estate.

In the most heartbreaking of cases, children have been left homeless, stripped of the assets they once shared as families and in some instances, separated among benevolent caregivers and guardians.

The Kehumile family was one such case, where the parents had initiated but not finalised marriage arrangements, before the father died. The family, according to court records made available last week, moved in and claimed the father’s estate, despite the fact that neither the late patriarch’s paternity nor his patronage of his children was in question. A battle that raged from the Customary Court, its Court of Appeal to the High Court and eventually the Court of Appeal, highlighted the raw emotionality of deceased estate cases and the need for our legal system to cover all loopholes. According to the judges: “It appears from the record that the respondents were so bent on disinheriting the appellants that they even resorted to dishonest machinations”. The judges said the children were denied access to their late father’s house and at one point, his cattle were sold without their knowledge or benefit, while the relatives were also seen burning papers he alleged owned.

The Court of Appeal’s 33-page judgement in favour of the children is an all-too familiar tale of betrayal, injustice and abandonment, where siblings are forced to grow up faster than they would have had to, in order to fight for their rights. The judges rightfully pointed out that the absence of marriage was no bar to inheritance and that “when a man spends his life bringing up his children, maintaining them, assuming the name of the first born and educating them, a decision that says those children cannot claim from him because of the outdated and demeaning description; “illegitimate,” is a bitter pill to swallow. We salute the judges and the Court of Appeal for protecting children’s rights and we pray that this will serve as a legal deterrent to those who would make away with inheritances they have no ethical, cultural or logical right to.

                                                                            Today’s thought

“An inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end.”

 

                                                                           - Hebrew Bible