Proposed amendments to the Civil Code would give more rights to children born outside wedlock and would strike off the word illegitimate when referring to these children.

The draft, which was published recently and which includes more than 100 amendments to the civil code, also proposes radical changes in the inheritance process.

Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg told a news conference that the most important amendments concerned the family or rather how one disposed of property after death.

One of the amendments improved the position of the surviving spouse in matters relating to succession.

He said the amendments eliminated many restrictions - such as on how much a spouse could leave to the other when there were children.

To date, a spouse who had children could not leave more than one fourth of the property to the surviving spouse when he or she died.

This prohibition would be eliminated, and so long as the minimum inheritance allowed by law was observed, there would be no limit as to the property one spouse could inherit from the other.

Dr Borg said the draft amendments proposed that when a spouse who did not have children died without a will, the surviving spouse would be entitled to all the inheritance.

He said that at present the law stipulated that when one of the childless spouses died and there was no will, the surviving spouse would inherit only half of the property while the other half was inherited by the relatives of the deceased.

Another thrust in the proposed amendments concerned children born out of wedlock.

He said that the word "illegitimate" referring to children born from unmarried couples would be removed from the law and the only reference to these children would be children born from a married couple and others who are not.

This would only be to state a fact but it would remove the stigma that they were outside the law with no legal identity. The word illegitimate appeared at least 50 times in the old civil code, he said.

He added that 14 per cent of all births were outside wedlock.

Dr Borg said the draft proposed a radical amendment in that those making a will had the freedom to leave as much property to children born outside wedlock as they wished. The minimum inheritance spouses could leave was the same in the case of children born in wedlock and others who were not.

To date, children born outside wedlock could only inherit one third of the legal minimum of inheritance.

According to the amendment, children born from unmarried couples could even be advantaged over children born in wedlock, he said.

Dr Borg explained that when there was no will, the situation of children born outside wedlock would improve considerably when compared to the present situation.

He said that another important measure proposed in the draft would facilitate the division of inheritance when those inheriting property failed after a certain number of years to agree how to divide the inheritance among them.

He said that in such a case, each heir would be able to sell his undivided share of the property even before the inheritance had been divided among the heirs.

Each co-proprietor would be able to request the court to approve the sale of such property at the price stipulated by the court. If there would be one co-proprietor opposing, the sale would be possible without the need of a court auction sale.

Dr Borg said that today, every person entitled to the minimum of inheritance could block the division of the property. The proposed amendment would reduce another obstacle that hindered the quick division of inheritance.

According to the draft, a surviving spouse would have the right of preference in the sale of the matrimonial house over which the spouse already had the right of habitation.

The draft was also proposing that children born from a second marriage would have the right for equal inheritance as children born from the first. To date, children born from a second marriage could not inherit more than children born from the first marriage.

Dr Borg said that amendments would facilitate the process for heirs to obtain a copy of that part of the will regulating their inheritance in the case when married couples had one will.

The amendments allowed the noting of a change in sex in the birth certificate for unmarried couples, as long as this was done through the court.

Dr Borg clarified that in no way should this be interpreted that the government was accepting transsexual marriages.

The unilateral recognition of the father of a child born outside marriage would no longer remain automatic but would be subject of the acceptance of the mother.

Another amendment would enable a widow who remarried to retain the surname of her first husband or to add it to the surname of her second husband. In this way the woman would be able to have the same surname as that of the children born of her first marriage.

All the amendments affecting the Succession Duty Act do not apply to inheritance of persons who had died but only to future inheritance.

Dr Borg said the process to reform the Civil Code had started in 1995 through a commission headed by Judge Riccardo Farrugia. It was continued later by the Attorney General's office headed by AG Anthony Borg Barthet.