Inheritance-induced familial disputes in north-west Ethiopia: the role of legal-policy gaps and aggravating…  – Nature.com 08:22

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 10, Article number: 92 (2023) Cite this article

Abstract

While Ethiopia has had family and inheritance laws since the 1960s, inheritance disputes among family members have exacerbated and the intended goals of protecting the security of property rights among marginalized family members have not been attained. Here, we explore the impact of legal-policy gaps and socio-economic dynamics in family inheritance disputes from the perspectives of litigants and lawyers. A mixed research approach was employed to investigate the distribution of conflicts across kinship ties and property types as well as to explore the experiences and feelings from both disputing parties and legal professionals involved in the conflict. Furthermore, data from closed court cases were scrutinized in order to identify disputants as well as substantiate the primary data. Our findings reveal that extended time to claim inheritance rights, absence time limit for establishing child status, unrestricted cancellation of wills and provisions for multiple wills on a single property, incompatibility between customary and statutory law, and limited opportunity for land acquisition, are all legal and policy gaps that overwhelmingly contribute to inheritance-induced familial disputes. The improvement in the legal consciousness of formerly marginalized groups and the growing corruption in the justice system as well as the weakening of family emotional ties have further aggravated such disputes. In light of these findings, we stress the value of thorough revision of conflict-provoking legal-policy gaps in family law (including the privatization of farmland meant to broaden land acquisition opportunities) and therapy for families whose relationships have broken down.

Introduction

It has been an accepted fact that family is one of the universal social institutions to which everyone belongs (Rodgers, 2004). It provides future generations with the social capital they need to gain access to resources through inheritance and other mechanisms (Mokomane, 2012). Essentially, it is the family that has been playing a tremendous role in socializing children by teaching fundamental social values and life skills (Peterson, 2009) so as to help the children smoothly integrate themselves into mainstream society. Ultimately, maintaining social solidarity and laying the indispensable foundation for overall national socio-economic development has to be primarily attributed, in one or the other way, to family institutions (Silverstein et al., 2012; Finch and Mason, 2000). However, as is evident in other arenas of social life, the family is also under the merciless attack of rapid global change and becomes a social hub, hosting recurring and horrifying disputes (Kim, 2015; Folberg, 2009; LAC, 2005). Inheritance-induced familial disputes appear to be one of the major sources of family conflict, despite the fact that inheritance was supposed to be the mechanism of a smooth transfer of not only assets but also love that determined generational socio-economic well-being (Izuhara and Köppe, 2019).

Considering the devastating potential of such conflicts on the basic social fabric, it is highly desirable that family law regulate family relationships, working tirelessly to reduce family conflict and allow families to maintain their vital societal functions (Rodgers, 2004). The fact that family structure and practices, including inheritance, vary widely between societies and nations means that the anticipated responses to the elements of the dispute and the outcomes for family members must be put into context. This is undoubtedly the product of existing laws, policies, and institutional arrangements that regulate and shape family practices, as well as different societal norms that shape people’s attitudes and behaviors (Izuhara and Köppe, 2019).

To this end, Ethiopia ratified its first civil code in the 1960s, which dealt with family and property law (Ethiopian civil code of 1960).The civil code in general, and family law in particular, have been revised to accommodateemerging socio-economic changes in society and to overcome the clearly observed drawbacks of previous policies and legal frameworks concerning family relations (the Revised Family Code Proclamation No. 213/2000). Furthermore, property law has also undergone several revisions at different times, using proclamations to protect the property rights of marginalized groups, which can ultimately reduce the level of inheritance disputes between family members. In contrast, inheritance-induced family conflict has emerged as a new conflict dynamic and the second most common type of conflict after domestic violence, as illustrated by the case of the Harergie district in the Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia (Nigusie, 2013). According to Kefyalew et al. (2018) in 1994, there were 1852 higher level court cases, 14,750 district-level court cases, and a total of 16,603 court cases, which increased to 8038 superior courts, 94,232 district-level court cases and a total of 102,270 court cases in 1918 in the East Gojjam area (northwestern Ethiopia). Of 102,270 trials in 1918, 87,575 were property cases, and the largest proportion concerned inheritance of family property, while the remaining 14,101 were criminal cases.

Despite these large increases and their negative consequences, the empirical literature on inheritance has focused disproportionately on the importance of inheritance for the transmission of wealth and intergenerational solidarity, and paid little attention to the stress, quarrels and dissatisfaction of family members (Izuhara and Köppe, 2019). Consequently, empirical studies of inheritance in Ethiopia and other sub-Saharan African countries also focus on gender aspects of inheritance and their impact on the intergenerational transmission of poverty (Doss et al., 2012; Kumar and Quisumbing, 2012; Cooper, 2008). Studies on the existing conflict mainly focus on ethnic, clan and politically induced conflicts (Mulunesh, 2019; Desplat, 2005).

In addition, the comprehensive profile of conflicts in Ethiopia by Getinet (2010) also indicates that ethnic, political and religious conflicts are common types of conflicts in Ethiopia. However, the nature of family disputes related to inheritance, their impact on family relationships and general social stability and development, and the views of lawyers and litigants on disputes that can serve as a basis for reducing these disputes have not been sufficiently studied. Therefore, this article aims to examine the nature of family court litigation over inheritance and the perspectives of legal professionals and litigants on the prevalence of inheritance-induced family court disputes in the eastern Gojjam district of northwestern Ethiopia. In particular, the main research questions of the study were: What is the nature of familial ties involved in an inheritance-induced dispute?; What types of properties are at the center of recurring inheritance disputes?; What are the legal-policy gaps inducing inheritance disputes? And what are these emerging socio-economic dynamics aggravating inheritance disputes?

Research methods

Description of study area

East Gojjam is one of the zonal administrative regions in Amhara Regional State in Ethiopia with the capital of Debre Markos, which is located 300 km from Addis Ababa. More than 21 rural districts and four municipal administrations are found within the administrative zone. In contrast to urban populations, who mostly depend on trade and employment in governmental and non-gunmetal organizations, more than 78% of the population lives in rural areas where agriculture serves as the primary economic base (WB, 2018; MoA, 2000).

Research approach and design

This study employed a mixed research approach to investigate the distribution of conflicts across kinship ties and property types as well as obtain perspectives of lawyers and litigants on such disputes. The use of this approach helps to bridge the weaknesses of one approach with the other in order to better investigate the research problem (Creswell and Clark, 2017; Ponce and Magán-Maldonado, 2015). Additionally, the design is typically cross-sectional in nature, meaning that all of the data collection activities were completed at one point in time.

Methods and procedures of data collection

Various data-gathering techniques and approaches were used to gather empirical data from a variety of sources. In the first phase, researchers gathered important data from closed court cases, mainly those involving family disputes based on inheritance that are already resolved by zonal-level courts by the year 2020. Second, employing the survey method and in-depth interviews, primary data were also gathered from the disputing parties. In-depth interviews with non-sampled contenders as well as lawyers and judges handling similar cases were also conducted. This helped investigators in addressing those crucial issues that were missed in the archived court records containing closed cases. Emphasis on recent cases that have resulted in a final decision at the zonal-level was considered in order to better grasp the contemporary severity of the problem than cases that took place in the distant past (including those cases that they are not referring to the zonal-level courts and instead ended up in the lower level courts). Additionally, only closed cases were deliberately chosen in order to avoid unnecessary interference in the private matters of the disputing parties during the legal proceedings and in order to gather more reliable information from closed cases than pending cases.

In order to capture the diverse viewpoints of the litigants and legal professionals involved in dispute resolution, both as judges and as legal advisors to the litigants, a two-stage sampling technique was employed to select the appropriate participants for each data collection method. In the first stage, four of the twenty-one rural districts and four of the municipal administrations that were available in the East Gojjam zonal administration were randomly selected. Once the districts were selected, court cases involving family property disputes that were reported to the court at the zonal-level and those that received a final decision within the specified period of time (2020) were identified. Consequently, a total of 570 closed cases pertaining to inheritance-related family disputes were identified of which 235 samples were selected using the Yamane (1967) formula with an accuracy level of 5, taking into account a relatively homogeneous population.

In terms of data collection, quantitative data was collected from 470 people, one defendant and one accuser from each of the 235 selected court cases to identify the types of family ties in dispute and the types of property in dispute and their relationship with legal and policy gaps. Researchers strongly believe that data obtained from court records and disputing parties may not be sufficient to successfully examine legal and policy gaps, as well as emerging socio-economic dynamics that exacerbate family disputes over property. For this reason, in-depth interviews were conducted with legal advisors and lawyers working in the region to obtain their expert views. A total of twelve (12) key informants (a legal advisor and a judge) were specifically selected from each selected district based on their willingness and experience with the subject under study (the interviews were conducted outside the office hours). In addition, in-depth interviews were also conducted with eighteen (18) disputants to find out their detailed experiences and feelings during and after the trial. All interviews were conducted at the informant’s home in order to provide respondents with reasonable privacy.

Data analysis

The data analysis process is the most complex and mysterious of all the phases of any qualitative investigation (Thorne, 2020). Considering the nature of the problem under study, the qualitative data analysis process was carried out using thematic analysis techniques, while the quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (percentage and frequency) of the distribution. Thematic analysis is a qualitative data analysis technique that involves searching a dataset to identify, analyze, and report repeating patterns (Braun and Clarke, 2006) Field notes and recorded audio recordings were listened to repeatedly, fully understood, and eventually transcribed into Amharic text (the language in which the data was originally collected). Then the Amharic text was translated into English, leaving the message unchanged, and it was read well to familiarize us with the whole data. Then the relationship between the datasets and the codes was identified and checked against the dataset to see if there was a possibility of a different code or an overlapping of codes. Next, the relationship between the codes and the dataset was examined to look for themes and make them independently meaningful and consistent with the overall analysis. Once the subjects were constructed, they were re-verified with all the codes and data to shape them to achieve the study objective and finally integrated with quantitative data.

An overview of legal-policy frameworks on family and property in Ethiopia

Ethiopian family law recognizes the family as the natural foundation of society, which requires adequate protection from both the state and society itself. One mechanism to do this is to implement proper regulations and regulate family relationships through the legal system. Similarly, Ethiopia has also sought to regulate inheritance systems that allow for the smooth transfer of wealth and solidarity between those who give a will and the heir, avoiding potential disputes between competing heirs and other relationships (Civil Code of the Ethiopia 1960 s and Revised Proclamation of the Family Code No. 213/2000).

Although Ethiopia introduced its first civil code in the 1960s to regulate family relationships and property rights, including inheritance, only a few changes have been made to the existing traditional regime that had been used prior to the ratification of the civil code. In addition to the inclusion of a few elements in the civil code, the recently added elements were largely impractical and obscured by the customary inheritance law (Brietzke, 1976). In particular, while the civil code gives equal rights to all legal heirs without any discrimination based on sex or age, the age-old customary inheritance system (which served as the main system for the transfer of property rights) was rather discriminatory by gender. Furthermore, the civil code describes the land, which is the most valuable asset, as government property, so that all citizens have equal access and inheritance rights from their families (1960 Civil Code of Ethiopia). Contrary to what the law says, the land was owned by landowners and the church (USAID/Ethiopia, 2004), and the mechanism of transmission to descendants was through patrilineal lines, including other socially and economically valuable assets (Gopal, 2001). This discriminatory system of property transfers, contrary to statutory law, has exposed families and women who do not own property to tenure insecurity as well as to the generational transmission of poverty (Kumar and Quisumbing, 2012). On the other hand, court cases related to inheritance disputes were less frequent and inheritance disputes between daughters, parents, and their brothers were almost non-existent. Even the already limited extent of property disputes was not brought to court; On the contrary, they could easily be solved by traditional arbitrators, who also prefer men. Currently, inheritance disputes have emerged as a new conflict dynamic in Ethiopia, as seen in the Harergie area (Nigusie, 2013).

When the Derg regime came to power in 1974, it was only in the last years of its power that a constitution, family laws, and other full-fledged laws were developed. However, since development rhetoric was equivalently used to refer to rural development, the then government paid due attention to the land issue and tried to develop a new land policy in 1975. The policy ended with the nationalization of all rural lands with the proclamation of March 4, 1975, and redistributed them among peasants through local peasant associations (Brietzke, 1976). The primary goal of nationalization and redistribution of rural land was to reduce the inequality in the distribution of rural land, as well as the rent paid for land use, which is usually associated with rural poverty and closely related to the traditional tenure system (Ottaway, 1977). However, the transfer of land by sale, lease, barter, or mortgage was prohibited and inheritance was severely limited, further weakening the weakened tenure security (USAID/Ethiopia, 2004).

Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1995, coupled with the general socio-economic changes in society, it became necessary to revise Ethiopian family law to keep pace with the dynamic changes over time. As a result, Proclamation No. 213/2000 of the Revised Family Law, which contains amendments to some elements of the 1960 Civil Code (Revised Family Law of 2000)? After the 1995 constitution, major changes were made to property rights, including inheritance law and farmers’ land rights. In particular, the 1997 Proclamation defined the land as state property and then gave farmers the right to own it and transfer it by inheritance, donation and lease. After this proclamation, ratified by the federal government, states began to develop their land policies in accordance with national proclamations, adapting regional land policies with the aim of guaranteeing property rights and reducing inheritance disputes (USAID/Ethiopia, 2004).

However, several publications have expressed controversial views on revised laws of family and property rights laws and policies regarding the issue of protecting property rights, especially the security of land tenure.For example, USAID/Ethiopia (2004) revealed that current land policies do not address the problems of peasant families. Furthermore, it is also argued that the policy does not fully take into account the changing needs and flexible economic strategies used by most families and that there is no room for young adults to reclaim their agricultural land. In contrast, Sibuh (2019) argued for the existing policy and pointed out that giving land as state property ensures the security of peasant ownership instead of privatizing it. Despite the arguments, the authors of this article support the idea of USAID/Ethiopia (2004) that the policy does not take into account the country’s emerging socio-economic changes, affecting the property, security of peasants, with the exception of some improvements regarding women’s right of access and control over their property.

We also argue that land has now become an area of severe conflict between families and even non-family members. As a result, most farmers are uncertain as to who will take their land tomorrow, either through legal means or using corruption as an illegal profit getting mechanism. Inheritance disputes worsen and cause a socio-economic crisis in society. In particular, disputes over farmland inheritance were seen as a second cause of conflict, along with domestic violence in Ethiopia’s Hararge district (Nigusie, 2013), where around 50% of local conflicts took place in the Tigray region in Ethiopia (Berihuet et al., 2015). In contrast, Sibuh (2019) ignored all these facts and advocated state control of certification of land and property rights as the preferred method of security of ownership.

Results and discussions

Mapping familial ties involved in an inheritance-induced disputes

Different indigenous societies have their own customary and legal ways of inheriting property in their lineages using different socio-demographic and relational criteria such as age, gender, emotional intimacy, kinship, and other parameters (Cooper, 2008). However, inheritance not only transmits wealth and love to generations but also transmits disputes through family lines during the process of transferring property to family members, breaking family relationships and their function as development as a whole (Izuhara & Köppe, 2019). Perhaps these inheritance-related conflicts are centered on two categories of close kinship (between siblings and parent-child) with vital and lasting relationships (Conway, 2016). The case is not unique in the context of the study area (northwestern Ethiopia), which exhibits the variety of inheritance and ownership rights common across the country (Fafchamps and Quisumbing, 2002)

Findings from the study indicated that family disputes encompassed different categories of kinship claiming inheritance rights, either through customary or statutory law, or even through mechanisms that confer both.The apparent conflicts occurred both in the vertical and horizontal lines of family relationships. Nevertheless, the study findings indicated that most conflicts arise between children who have equal and primary inheritance rights under the law, but who have multiple rights in the eyes of the common law. Disputes between parents and grandchildren, parents and children as well as between grandparents and great-grandchildren are limited. Customary law and state inheritance law give them very limited inheritance rights (only if there are no primary heirs) and leave little room for inheritance disputes. In addition, descriptive statistical results on the categories of kinship (ties) involved in the disputed families indicated that, of the 235 trials, 126 (57.45%) were siblings (children) in parental ownership and about 41 (17.45%) were between parents and children. The remaining 31 (13.19%), 15 (6.38%), and 13 (5.53%) disputes were between children and grandchildren, siblings of the heir, and parents and grandchildren, respectively.

The in-depth interview conducted with judges and legal advisers revealed arguments quite similar to the result of the survey. When the priority of inheritance rights is given to all heirs, but at the same time, a variety of rights is distributed in the customary system, mainly on the basis of gender and age, disagreements over the fairness of the distribution and the likelihood of conflict between children increases. Legal disputes between parents and children were also found to be the second most common disputes. Since parents are the main bequeath to children’s most important inheritance for children, they make a one-sided will for one of their children, taking into account their emotional ties with him/her and other forms of care and support for the child that are granted to the parent.

A participant who was involved in previous disputes stated the following:

“… Conflicts are more common between siblings and close relatives because they focus on property rights. Non-relatives do not have the right to claim the same property, so they do not confront each other, but because siblings share ownership conflicts. Their family on the distribution of property becomes very frequent and serious among the siblings. Especially those who have lost their parents through death are currently in a serious conflict and relationship breakdown…”

Furthermore, if parents suddenly feel uncomfortable about hiring, they may not be able to deliver on their promise of something in return for their children. All of these issues cause children, dissatisfied with their rejected will, to choose to accuse their parents. There is also a situation where parents and children face property transfers when adult children attempt to forcibly appropriate their parents’ property at an older age to protect it from competing heirs (Ahamed et al., 2020).

Types of properties in the recurring inheritance disputes

Cross culturally, inheritance disputes seem to be more common when it comes to financially and socially valuable assets (Conway, 2016). It also turns out that the values of assets in societies are also different, which has a corresponding impact on the structure of family disputes in inheritance. Our study found that the majority of families dispute the fair distribution of farmland, family businesses, livestock, homes, and household appliances, including jewelry (although disputes over farmland outweigh all disputes on other types of assets).

As shown in the table above, disputes arising from the inheritance of farmland represent 77.87% of the disputes reported in court, the largest family dispute of all the other types of properties. Disputes involving family businesses, homes, livestock, jewelry, equipment and more than one type of property were followed by 2.55%, 7.23%, 6.38%, 2.13%, and 3.84%, respectively. According to the lawyer working in the Gozamen district Land Administration Office (one of the sample districts in the study area), more than 80 percent of ownership cases in the district involve agricultural land and take place between members of the family. This finding is in harmony with the USAID study (2008 cited in Irambeshya, 2013), which shows that about half of the disputes in Rwanda concern the inheritance of agricultural land caused by families. Furthermore, agricultural land is the second most common dispute in Harergie (Nigusie, 2013), the main source of income and civil cases in agrarian Bangladesh (Siddik et al., 2018). Contrary to these findings, real estate and family homes represent the largest types of property disputes in the UK (Izuhara and Köppe, 2019).

A study participant involved in past inheritance disputes stated that:

“…. I don’t want to fight with my only brother over less important properties like equipment or jewelry. But how can I live if I don’t get my share of farmland from my parents? As a farmer I have no choice but my share to get land to support me. I asked him politely and repeatedly, but he refused to give me my share of our parents’ farmland. In the end I accused him and we all spent time and money in court…”

In agrarian societies such as northwestern Ethiopia (more than 78% live in rural villages practicing subsistence agriculture (WB, 2018)), the transfer of agricultural land determines the transfer of wealth and property for them and their future generations compared to other types of assets. In addition to their economic value, agricultural land also has cultural significance of family. It is an enduring property passed down from generation to generation with the cultural significance of family, lineage and prestige, not to mention economic value. Therefore, ensuring such generational economic and social well-being led family members to sue when the heir did not make a will, when there were multiple interpretations or some other vacuum that fueled the dispute.

Besides the relational implications, the economic costs of conflict also deserve attention. Despite minor variations reported across the study districts, 43–57% of agricultural land is mismanaged due to family disputes and exhibits significantly reduced productivity. Other studies in Kenya have also shown that conflicts over agricultural land reduce productivity by 13% (CEEPA, 2011). This is due to the uncertain future of ownership and the fact that farmers prioritize involvement in litigation over commercially viable activities. According to our study, the parties in conflict lose 1 to 2.5 quintiles annually compared to what they cultivated on the same plot before the conflict. The decline in agricultural land productivity, as well as the costs associated with the litigation process, threatens the development of the local community as well as the development of the country as a whole.

Legal-policy gaps inducing inheritance disputes: perspectives of professionals and disputants

Legal and policy gaps attributed in part to inheritance-induced family disputes are not identified through a thorough documentary analysis of family and property law. Instead, we critically analyzed the legal and policy gaps in reviewing dead court cases, the perspectives of study participants involved in past conflicts, and the legal professionals dealing with those disputes. Therefore, as they are available in the documents themselves, the policies and legal loopholes that may not be reflected in this study are not covered in this article.

Inconvenient statutory inheritance laws

The complication of family and inheritance is reflected in a number of manifestations. These mainly include; unlimited time to claim the inheritance rights, lack of time limit to establish the status of child/paternity/, and unlimited cancellation of the will, resulting in the provision of multiple wills to the heirs on a single property, which reveal all the main drawbacks of the law that facilitates the progression of inheritance-induced disputes. The judges reported that parents have the right to transfer their property to their children in the form of a gift or inheritance through an oral will or another form of will, including complete cancellation or modification if they feel uncomfortable. Art. 899, paragraph (1) also stated that the testator could revoke his will or any provision contained therein by material destruction, tearing, or canceling (Ethiopian civil code, 1960).

Parents often choose to die of old age in hopes of receiving care and support from their heirs. However, they may frequently cancel the will and give it to other heirs if they don’t feel comfortable with the previous heirs. In such circumstances, there may be disputes between parents and children whose rights are canceled, especially after one has been caring for and supporting the parents for a number of years. Disputes can arise not only with parents but also between heirs of the same will at different times since the one who supported the parents for a longer period will be put at a disadvantage, not to mention the right perpetual inheritance left to the last heir after the death of the parents. This perpetual inheritance right granted to the last heir, who may actually only serve the parents for a relatively short period of time compared to the heirs whose right is canceled, leads to a serious confrontation between children. Interviews with legal advisors also revealed that frequent alteration of parental inheritance has become common among adult children and is the leading cause of property-induced familial disputes in the East Gojjam area of Amhara regional state (Tables 1 and 2).Table 1 distribution of disputes by kinship categories.

Full size tableTable 2 Frequency distribution of family disputes by property type.

Full size table

One informant argued as follows:

“…I gave my elderly father proper care and support for seven years in exchange for inheriting his farmland. However, after I served him for seven years, he canceled our agreement and gave the land to my little brother, justifying that I had not given him the comfort he expected from me. A year later, our father died. Soon after, we started quarreling as he decided to take everything for himself, regardless of the value of my long-time services to my father. He even refused to share it with me!…”

The other critical drawback of the law, which leads to litigation, is the lack of a time limit for determining child or paternity status. Interviews with judges and legal advisors revealed that Ethiopian family law has no time limit to raising a child’s status to establish a legal way to inherit parental property. For example, article 776. At the same time, sub-article 1 also states that a child can claim the status at any time of his life (Ethiopian Civil Code, 1960). The child, as the first legal heir, can claim the inheritance in the years following the transfer of the will to others. This unlimited time to claim child status and the extended time to assert inheritance rights undoubtedly created a vacuum in which both rights could be claimed even after the death of the claimed father.

One of the informants who is an attorney in the study area stated that:

“… Although the number of cases is not that large, there are cases of childhood and related rights that lead family members into dispute. I remember a 35-year-old girl who brought her inheritance 15 years after the death of her alleged father. She took the case to court because her quest for child and inheritance rights was rejected by her alleged father’s family (her siblings), who ignored her for both child status and inheritance since they did not raise the issue of child status prior to that period, nor did she have any intimacy that could testify to his family relationships with alleged fathers and relatives.”

During the disputes, testimonials include DNA test results, photos taken during greetings, and exchanges of gifts with the baby and mother, as well as other eyewitnesses are considered. Aside from the DNA test result (which is not available in facilities in Ethiopia and only possible overseas at a fairly high cost), other investigative mechanisms used in these cases are all subject to document falsification and false testimony, which shouldn’t be used as valid means to establish real family ties. Owing to the unavailability and impracticability of DNA testing, less reliable mechanisms are usually used to indicate kinship relationships that give way to claiming child status and inheritance rights that lead to disputes. These findings are consistent with Cooper (2008), who revealed that inheritance disputes are one of the problems stemming from inconvenient state laws in French-speaking West African countries, and Siddik et al. (2018), who has also indicated that the preparation of incorrect documents and false information during the testimony is one of the causes of land-related conflicts in Bangladesh.

Incompatibility between statutory and customary inheritance laws

The collision of statutory law and customary inheritance law appears to be a major factor in family disputes arising from the transfer of assets. As clearly pointed out in Mulugeta (2016), Ethiopia has adopted an alien and foreign legal system that is incompatible with the age-old tradition of society and with customary rules, although constitutional law is considered a mirror of society itself. Legal inheritance gave all children an equal right to inherit without discrimination on grounds of sex or age, unless the parents themselves transferred the inheritance rights during their lifetime. The children of the deceased are the first to be called to his succession, and each of them is entitled to an equal share of the succession (Ethiopian Civil Code of 1960), as does the FDRE (1995).

The Informants of the study further stated that the society of Gojjam(the study area) has its customary family property distribution mechanisms, which have been existed for generations. This customary law ensures that farmland, family homes, weapons and other culturally prestigious assets belong to the sons, especially those who live near the parental home and provide their parents a long period of support and care and develop a strong emotional bond with them.

One of the key informants, a lawyer from the land administration office, framed his arguments as follows:

“…Family disputes over inheritance issues are a major source of conflict in families. There are a number of people who refuse to allocate property rights to others despite knowing state laws and even after being defeated in court. It’s basically their insistence on the customary mechanism of the property transfer system that they’ve known has worked in their society for generations. There lies the difficulty of convincing the disputing parties to settle the dispute in a win-win way…”

Similarly, a local farmer explained the tendency of strong community adherence to the customary system of property inheritance, as well as his observation of the incompatibility of statutory law with customary law, as follows:

“…As far as I know, the age-old system of customary inheritance of family property was good for maintaining harmony and stability among family members. However, what has only recently come from the government (referring to state law) as transferring systems is quite alien to our custom of turning the sacred family into a center of chaos and conflict, as they have failed to convince anyone of its fairness. To tell my story, I, with my sisters and brothers, had accused our little sister, who inherited our parents’ home and farmland close to the house, of being deceived by our older brother. Consequently, we stigmatize her from any form of relationship since she is the wrong child for our lineage to be remembered, including the name and social prestige of our father…”

Unlike the ignorance of the statutory inheritance law of some elements of the customary law, the customary law remained in the consciousness of society, guiding and operating the distribution of wealth among members of society (especially within families). The coexistence of these incompatible inheritance laws plays a counterproductive role in society by causing inheritance disputes. The key problem in this case is that one of the disputing parties may prefer to rely on statutory or customary law, whichever would maximize their benefits. In general, women in the region are more likely than men to be involved in disputes over farmland inheritance. This is perhaps the obvious consequence of the usual but generally functional (but equal in legal inheritance rights) disadvantaged position of women in relation to agricultural property. Contrary to this finding, revealed that women in Cambodia are relatively less exposed to conflicts over land ownership claims following the revision of the law, although conflicts over agricultural land are more common and represent a threat to the nation. This may be the inconsistent nature of statutory law and customary land in Ethiopia, although Cambodia has managed to solve women’s inheritance issues.

Limited land acquisition opportunity

Ethiopia has a predominantly rural population whose livelihoods depend entirely on subsistence, rain-fed, and agriculture, which made up about 85.8% of the population in 1997 (when the rural land policy was ratified) and has shown a steady decline to 78.6% of the population in 2020 (WB, 2018). Despite their large share of the population, farmers do not have the legal right to exchange their land, as national policies clearly state that land belongs to nations and nationalities, not individuals. Individuals have the right to obtain land through inheritance, gifting, or government redistribution of vacant land. In practice, however, it is only through gift and inheritances that land can be acquired, as the government’s redistribution claim is impracticable due to the lack of free land on the one hand and, on the other hand, the rent is relatively expensive for the most land, less poor.

One of the informants who worked as a lawyer in the area expressed his thoughts as follows:

“… I believe that if people have other alternative ways to obtain agricultural land rights, the accusations and other powerful land management tools and land use rights could be reduced.” Because if they acquire a few acres of land by other means, they may not be able to get the land by blaming their families and destroying their relationships.”

At the heart of the problem is the unavailability of any opportunity for any grown-up adult to acquire farmland through any forms of exchange/sale/force them to eagerly wait for the only option available on earth, i.e., inheritance from parents. Under such circumstances, fierce competition over the only scarce resource supporting rural livelihoods in the country has become an inescapable cause of familial disputes in society. Informants firmly argued that rural youth are among the most economically marginalized social groups due to the limited opportunity available to them to own farmland (the backbone of the rural economy). Their daily stress is whether they can get a piece of agricultural land, either through a gift or inheritance. Unfortunately, while supporting millions of rural people in a limited area, farmland is such a scarce resource to satisfy the demands of all children. In connection to this, parental preference in the provision of inheritance further worsens the already dissatisfied family members so that they easily decide to accuse one another. Furthermore, there is a situation that most often ends up in a complete interruption of familial ties, involving physical injury and even murder.

Emerging socio-economic dynamics: factors aggravating inheritance disputes

In addition to the legal-policy gaps discussed above, improvement in the legal consciousness of marginalized groups who were previously prohibited from inheritance, and growing corruption in the justice system are all socio-economic dynamics aggravating family disputes in one way or another. The following section discussed those issues.

Improvement in legal consciousness of formerly marginalized groups

As indicated in the previous pages, the family and property laws and policies of Ethiopia and regional states have been continuously revised with the aim of reducing disputes over property rights between family members and ensuring access to equitable distribution of agricultural land.The measure increased the awareness of previously vulnerable family members, primarily female and disabled family members, about securing property rights. Paradoxically, a rise in awareness of inheritance law (statutory law in particular) didn’t reduce conflict among family members; rather, it further aggravated it. Study participants reported that there is an improvement in the legal consciousness of this marginalized group of the population so that they are continuously claiming their right to get a share of the family property. This is, in fact, contrary to what has been working for years, though the 1960 Ethiopian civil code gives equal rights of inheritance for all children. This situation puts many family members in a constant confrontation between those who have customarily inherited family property and those who don’t. This is one of the cases that contributed the greatest share to the rise in the number of inheritance-induced conflict cases in the court.

Growing corruption in the justice system

According to TI studies (2012 and 2007), petty corruption in the judiciary has become a common problem in developing countries, and the experience of paying bribes to judges is increasing alarmingly. Petty bribery, paid by assistants, the judiciary or a legal advisor to remove documents and delay decision dates, undermines the credibility of the court in securing property rights, especially for the poor. Corruption is a serious crime in Ethiopia, with severe social consequences for offenders. However, in recent times it has become an operating system with an increasing participation of ordinary citizens, although the most serious corruption is largely committed by senior officials (Rahman, 2018). Besides its adverse impact on economic development, corruption in the justice system is triggering inheritance-induced family disputes as it allows the powerful to divert court decisions in favor of their own interests, regardless of fairness. Informants argued that most corrupted attorneys dare to view their profession as a business, disregarding their professional ethics. They can accept any type of case (as long as it is paid) and bring it to court, knowing that the fair legal procedure will not allow their client to obtain his or her family member’s property. In general, legal professional ethics advises attorneys to counsel disputing parties on how to resolve their dispute with the least amount of financial and relational cost. However, contrary to professional ethics, they take it as business and advise clients with any case to bring to court, convincing them that they have a high possibility of winning. In some cases; they also deliberately stretch the decision date by reaching a consensus with judges in order to ask for additional money in the name of processing the case.

It is that corruption paid for by judges, either through the legal advisors or directly by a client to divert the decision in favor of the bribe payer, further triggers violent conflict among family members. Besides aggravating disputes, corruption is also motivating families to make false accusations as they know that it is the corruption that made them lose the case and also what they deserve in the inheritance rights law as well. In this study; among 235 cases, 142 accusers reported that they accused their families after consulting their legal advisor.

One of the key informants (an attorney) argued that:

“… It is now impossible to work as an attorney unless he or she is known for his or her friendly relationship with judges at all levels of the court, from lower to higher.“Because, though we did our best to maximize the advantage of our clients through fair legal procedure, we rarely won the cases due to corrupted legal systems…”

Furthermore, preparing eyewitnesses, either paid or relatives, to give false testimony in order to divert a court decision is a common form of justice sector corruption that exacerbates the prevalence of unjust accusations in the area. According to Kefyalew et al. (2018), eyewitnesses get legal recognition as evidenced by the constitution of FDRE 1995 article 20 (4) and article 37 (1) and the civil law numbers 223 (1) () and 234(1) () 257261264265266 and the criminal law numbers 121, 124, 126, and 142. The assumption is that an eyewitness will stand for moral values, will never cooperate with criminals, and will expose offenders. Paradoxically, it became a severe threat to justice and a potential cause for dispute among families and non-families.

An informant argued about a false eyewitness as follows:

“…I can get the T-shirt that you wear now through a false eyewitness if I don’t fear God. It is that simple….”

This shows how false eyewitness testimony is powerful in diverting decisions in the wrong direction and the courts’ incredibility in securing the rights of vulnerable family members. Such kinds of litigation are aggravated due to the rise of social admiration of corrupted lawyers and judges, as well as disputants who accumulate financial, material, or capital by any means instead of imposing social sanctions on them.

Decline of societal values: weakening of family ties

Undeniably, like other arenas of social life, the family (particularly in the global south) is under continuous structural and functional transformation due to the swift global socio-economic changes (Kim, 2015). In fact, it has been argued that the apparent socio-economic changes, including their implications, are widely common in any other arena of the social environment. However, significant particularities still exist when it comes to both the structural changes and implications happening within familial relationships (Izuhara and Köppe, 2019; Thornton & Fricke, 1987).There is sufficient literature on the discontinuity of traditional structures and functions of African families. Referring to some selected African countries and Bigombe & Khadiagala (1990) in sub-Saharan Africa, indicated that families are changing in structure and functions and are faced with moral decay.

In this regard, family institutions in Ethiopia are also experiencing fundamental socio-demographic and economic changes, making it difficult to function as sources of economic, social, and emotional support for their members (Akuma, 2015; AU, 2012). Similarly, the results of our research also clearly showed that the decline in family values is one of the most important changes that mainly affect family relationships. Though it is not sufficient to indicate the magnitude of change in structure and functions, court documents reveal that half-siblings and single-parent family disputes show an increasing trend. The statistical result revealed that out of 235 disputes, 126 were between siblings, out of which 57 cases were among half-siblings who had a weak emotional attachment and pre-conflict acquaintance. Particularly, among 41 cases based on vertical accusations due to asset transfer (parent-child), 17 are among fathers and children who have no or little emotional acquaintance and familial affiliation. The story of one of the informants in the ‘Aneded’ district clearly reveals how the decline in emotional attachment between family members is causing terrible disputes among themselves. He argued that he and one of his sons were in conflict with his other five children (born of his former wife) due to the revelry sentiment they developed for each other. Eventually, they accused each other and spent over five years in court proceedings, which cost them a lot both financially and emotionally.

One of the informants argued his way:

“… My brother has his own farmland, but I don’t have my own since I was young when the 1989 farmland redistribution arrangement was done. My option is to inherit my parents’ land with other siblings who do not have farmland like me. But he refused to share, instead accusing me in district court and then appealing to the zonal court to take the piece of land that I might inherit. How could I need a brother who prevents me from getting a piece of land that barely feeds me?…”

The apparent decline in acquaintance and familial emotional ties, which is usually attributed to inheritance-induced disputes among family members, has its roots in broader structural change. The maximization of one’s vested economic interests at the cost of family relationships and mutual development is largely attributed to the ongoing economic stress and survival questions. According to the legal advisors, property claim disputes are frequent and intensive among siblings who are born of different parents and who don’t have any acquaintance with one another. Evidently, the rise in the number of child status claims after parental death is an indicator of prioritizing economic value (inheritance) over family relationships (which is supposed to be an end in itself). This finding is consistent with that of Tamapo and Barbara (2020) and Conway (2016), who asserted that inheritance conflicts are more frequent among half-siblings and those who have fraught relationships.

Conclusion

The researchers in this study examined inheritance-induced family disputes at the family level by primarily analyzing their nature (family relationships of litigants and disputed property ownership) and the perspectives of legal professionals and litigants on the emergence of such disputes. Inheritance disputes are more common between siblings and parent-child relationships, as legal and cultural transfers focus primarily on these family relationships.Agricultural land has the largest share in causing conflict as it is the main economic resource of rural communities and a symbol of family lineage. The results showed that the society has not only dual but also rolled inheritance laws (customary law and statutory inheritance law). While statutory law recognizes children as primary and equal heirs, common law recognizes children as primary, but with different rights based on gender, age, and property type.Heirs prefer laws that give them an advantage and initiate litigation when they feel marginalized in the inheritance process. While the 1997 Land Proclamation allows for ways to acquire farmland rights other than inheritance and gift, in practice inheritance and gift are the only ways to acquire land tenure rights. This causes siblings and the younger generation to actively wait and compete for the inheritance from their parents, prompting them to confront the detriment of their family relationships.

Extended time to establish child status /paternity status, unlimited will cancellation resulting in the issuance of multiple wills on a single property; conflicts between customary law and statutory inheritance law; and limited land acquisition opportunities have all been identified as legal and policy gaps leading inexorably to inheritance-induced family disputes in Ethiopia. The right to be granted child status is a permanent right in family law.Since the law allows inheritance to be claimed within 17 years of the will being made and at any time if the will has not been made, it leads to claiming child status and inheritance rights being claimed even after the claimed father’s death.This not only leads to the emergence of false claims accompanied by incorrect documents and witnesses, but also makes conflicts boring as litigation take place between competitors who have no family affiliation.

In addition, under inheritance law, testators could revoke their will at any time and their property would be passed on to their adult children in exchange for their care and support. The law does not set a time limit for canceling a will, so parents can do so and transfer their property to other heirs. As a result, conflicts between siblings who received inheritance rights to the same property at different times, and between parents and children, escalated. Apart from the negative impact on economic development, corruption in the judiciary also leads to inheritance-induced family disputes, as it allows power to hijack judicial decisions in favor of its own interests, in defiance of fairness. Moreover, the steady decline in societal values and broke dawn of emotional ties in the family, and the improvement in the legal awareness of marginalized groups who have been denied the right to inheritance, exacerbate family conflicts.

Since family structure and practice, including inheritance, differ substantially between societies and countries, recommendations and planned responses to the dispute’s constituent parts and their results must be interpreted within that context. Inheritance-induced familial disputes can be reduced by critically revising those articles and sub-articles of family and inheritance laws that conflicting elements open for litigation. Besides, banning the customary inheritance system at all levels of court can reduce inheritance disputes since it is discriminatory and inconsistent with statutory law. Furthermore, if farmland is privatized, individuals can acquire farmland through sales and other forms of exchange, reducing the number of landless youth competing for inheritance among siblings. Working to revitalize indigenous values that have maintained family cohesion for generations, as well as establishing institutions focused primarily on anti-corruption behavior, are also worthwhile considerations.

Data availability

The data are not publicly available but can be provided by the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Debre Markos University for funding this study and all study participants for their willingness to provide valuable information to help achieve the study objectives.

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  1. Debre Markos University, Debre Markos, EthiopiaWondale Temesgen Tedla & Kasahun Desyalew Mekonen

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Correspondence to Wondale Temesgen Tedla.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethnical approval was granted by the research ethics review committee of the college of Social Science and humanities of Debre Markos University.

Informed consent

All study participants were recruited based on interest and oral informed consent was obtained to allow audio recording. Audio recordings were anonymised as indicated in the consent form and used for research purposes only. The choice of interview setting and time was also left to the discretion of all participants. As such, the data collection process was carried out in participants’ homes to enable them feel relaxed to express their opinions, whatever issues they have to raise. The confidentiality of all the information provided by the participants was guaranteed and the anonymization of all the information collected was ensured during analysis and reporting.

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Tedla, W.T., Mekonen, K.D. Inheritance-induced familial disputes in north-west Ethiopia: the role of legal-policy gaps and aggravating socio-economic dynamics. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10, 92 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01558-5

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