Disputes on Weapons Succession

Abstract

The author of the article has analyzed the specifics of the registration of the right to weapons inheritance and has established that the relations of weapons succession are complex in their legal nature, since they consist of both private legal relations regarding the transfer of weapons to a lawful heir in the manner of hereditary succession, and public legal relations that regulate the procedure for registering weapons with a lawful heir in order to ensure the possibility of exercising all the owner’s powers regarding the possession, use and disposal of weapons by a lawful heir as the weapons’ owner.
It has been argued that weapons succession under the current legislation of Ukraine has its own specific features. It is due to the fact that weapons are not fully tradable object of civil rights. It has been substantiated that the lack of legislative regulation of relations on weapons succession gives rise to disputes of both private legal nature and public legal nature.
It has been established that disputes of private legal nature include disputes on the declaration of the ownership right to weapons, which are heard within civil legal proceedings. While considering this category of disputes, the courts proceed on the basis that:
(a) the current legislation distinguishes between the concepts of “weapons succession by a lawful heir” and “registration of weapons in the name of a lawful heir”, since the very fact of receiving a certificate on the right of weapons succession does not provide a lawful heir with the right to store or possess weapons, such powers are available to a lawful heir only if he / she has permission from the police agency to purchase weapons, as well as re-registration (reissuance) of weapons for a lawful heir in the National Police agencies;
(b) if a plaintiff is not deprived of the opportunity to register the right to inheritance through extrajudicial procedures, and the right to receive a certificate of weapons succession notarially is not violated, then it is the basis for refusing to satisfy the claim for the declaration of ownership on weapons in the manner of inheritance.
It has been proved that disputes of public legal nature that are subject to consideration within administrative legal proceedings include disputes arising on the basis of weapons registration by the National Police agencies in the name of a lawful heir. In this case, the courts proceed on the basis that the issues of inheritance, including the definition of the legal components of succession, lawful heirs, their priority, registration and issuance of a certificate on the right to inheritance of property, are beyond the powers of the National Police agencies.