Peculiarities of the study of signatures and handwritten entries in wills in civil proceedings

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of signatures and handwritten en tries in wills in civil proceedings based on the analysis of forensic litera ture, provisions of current Ukrainian legislation and expert practice of the Khmelnytskyi Branch of Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. The author emphasizes that a will is an important instrument for legal regulation of inheritance relations, and a signature is its mandatory requisite. In case of disputes regarding the authenticity of the testator’s signature, the court may order a forensic handwriting examination. Attention is drawn to some peculiarities of the objects of research in a will, taking into account the specific features characteristic of elderly and senile persons. The impor tance of information about the condition of the executor and the condi tions under which the will was executed is determined. It is emphasized that properly prepared comparative material is essential for conducting identification research. The author identifies a peculiarity of the study of signatures of elderly and senile persons, when an expert needs to dis tinguish between changes in the signs acquired over time and those which occur in the case of deliberate distortion, imitation or execution of signatures in unusual conditions. The author analyzes examples from expert practice when a signature with pronounced diagnostic features was subject to examination, and also when the informative content of the object of study and the sufficiency of comparative material made it possible to identify a set of features that characterize and individualize a person’s signature and handwriting, despite the person’s senile age and illness.