The father died, the mother's whereabouts were unknown for many years, and the son was unable to withdraw his father's bank deposits because he was unable to produce proof that he was the only one entitled to legal inheritance. Finding the mother is the key to solving the problem, but things are far more complicated than imagined-

Withdrawing the deceased father's deposit "twists and turns"

"Thanks to the help of the prosecutor, I finally withdrew more than 20 yuan of my father's bank deposit before his death, and what I didn't expect was that I also found my mother, who had been separated for more than 20 years." On October 10, Lan called the prosecutor of the Songyang County Procuratorate in Zhejiang Province to express his gratitude.

And just a few months ago, Lan was still worried about how to withdraw his deceased father's deposit.

My father died

Legacy bank deposits are difficult to withdraw

25-year-old Lan is the only son in the family, he has not seen his mother for as long as he can remember, and the father and son have been dependent on each other for many years. When he became an adult, Lan went out to work, and his father worked diligently at home to farm, and his life was quite passable.

On April 4 this year, Lan suddenly received a call from a neighbor in his hometown, informing him that his father had been found dead at home. Lan quickly rushed back to his hometown to handle his father's funeral, and when he sorted out his father's belongings, he found two bank passbooks, totaling more than 5 yuan.

After calming down, Lan came to the bank and prepared to withdraw his father's savings. Unexpectedly, the bank staff told him that after the death of the depositor, his legal heirs must hold the inheritance certificate issued by the notary office to withdraw the money.

In order to obtain the corresponding supporting documents, Lan went to the notary office again. However, the staff of the notary office said that Lan's mother was also the first heir, and because it was impossible to confirm the situation of Lan's mother, it was impossible to issue a certificate that Lan enjoyed the sole legal inheritance right.

This stumped Lan. Where is the mother? Is it still alive? In Lan's impression, his father once said that his mother ran away from home when he was two years old. He only vaguely remembered that his mother was from Yunnan and her surname was Cheng. The parents' marriage certificate, which was later found, also showed the same information.

In order to withdraw his deceased father's savings, Lan had no choice but to embark on the road of finding his mother.

The mother's whereabouts are unknown

Application for cancellation of the marriage registration of the parents

Lan first took his parents' marriage certificate to the police station in the jurisdiction for help, hoping to find some information about his mother. The police attached great importance to this matter and helped to inquire as soon as possible. However, due to the technical conditions in the early years, the relevant information was not registered online, and it was impossible to lock the specific object only by querying the name and place of origin of Lan's mother. The mother's whereabouts are unknown, and Lan, as a son, naturally cannot ask the civil affairs department or the court to revoke the marriage registration of his parents.

Is it true that my father's savings cannot be withdrawn? Lan was at a loss.

"Could there be a problem with the information your mother provided back then?" An inadvertently reminded, Lan, with a sentence. The fellow also mentioned that someone in the village was once registered for marriage under a false name, and in the end, the procuratorate helped solve the problem.

Why don't you try it with the procuratorate? On July 7 this year, Lan applied to the Songyang County Procuratorate for supervision, requesting help to revoke his parents' marriage registration.

After receiving Lan's application, the procurator in charge found that this case was very different from the cases handled in the past. In this case, the applicant was not a party to the marriage registration, but a child of the party. Can a child be an applicant for the cancellation of marriage supervision? After comprehensive research and judgment, the procurator believes that the substantive problems encountered by the applicant in this case are related to marriage registration, and if the marriage registration of his parents is illegal and harms his substantive rights and interests, it meets the requirements of the parties stipulated in Article 6 of the "Guiding Opinions on Properly Handling the Issue of Handling Marriage Registration by Impersonation or Fraud" jointly issued by the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and belongs to other interested parties.

At the same time, the prosecutor in charge carefully checked the marriage registration file of Lan's parents and found that there was indeed a problem: on the original marriage registration materials in 1997, the woman's identity information was only her name and place of origin, and there was no ID number or household registration information. The prosecutor decided to take the case before and establish the truth.

Prosecutors investigated and uncovered the truth

The parties inherit the estate smoothly

After accepting the case, the prosecutor in charge immediately rushed to the village committee and the local police station where Lan was located to investigate the relevant situation, and soon learned an important piece of information from the older generation: Cheng had been sentenced for a crime. If there is such a thing, there must be a case record, and it will not be difficult to find someone again.

However, after many inquiries, the prosecutor did not find any record of Cheng's crime. When he learned that there were other people who were sentenced together with Cheng, the prosecutor searched the file through the names of the co-defendants, and finally, he really locked down a case and found that in that case, there was a criminal "Chen" who had a high degree of overlap with Cheng's information.

Could this "Chen" and Cheng be the same person? The prosecutor then reviewed the relevant records and compared the personal information of Cheng and "Chen" one by one, and the results were really correct. At this point, the prosecutor can basically determine that the "Chen" in that criminal case is Cheng.

In order to further ascertain the truth, the procurator in charge of the case went to the court non-stop to obtain the file materials of the criminal case, but the relevant information only contained the name of "Chen" and a certain county in Yunnan Province where he was registered. Subsequently, the procurator sent a letter of assistance to the procuratorate in the place of household registration to inquire whether the person could be matched, but the reply was that no such person could be found.

The case seems to be back to square one. By re-examining and judging the information of the case involved in "Chen", the prosecutor keenly captured the key information point of the prison where he was serving his sentence, and used this as a starting point to carry out his work. The Songyang County Procuratorate sent a letter of assistance to the prison where "Chen" was serving his sentence, and obtained information such as photos of "Chen" in prison.

Making full use of digital case-handling methods, and then the public security organs assisted in using facial recognition technology to conduct comparisons, it was found that "Chen" was extremely similar to "Chen" in the population information system, and that his hometown was a county in Yunnan Province and his domicile was a county in Zhejiang Province. For this reason, the Songyang County Procuratorate sent a letter of assistance to the procuratorate of a certain county in Zhejiang Province to inquire whether "Chen XX" was still living here, and finally received a positive reply. After the linkage of prisons, public security organs, courts, and procuratorates in two provinces and three places, "Chen Moumou" was finally found.

So, is this "Chen Moumou" Lan's mother?

The procurator in charge dialed the phone number of "Chen Moumou" and explained to her the cause and effect of the incident. "Chen Moumou" admitted that he was Chen Moumou in that criminal case, and that he had registered his marriage with others in Songyang County and had a son. By identifying the photo on the marriage registration application form, "Chen Moumou" confirmed that the person was herself. She said that in her early years, she was deceived into going to Songyang County in the name of part-time work, and was arranged to live in Lan's father's house, and later married Lan's father. Because she was not of legal age for marriage at that time, she used a false name to register her marriage with Lan's father.

"Chen Moumou" said that it was not his true intention to marry Lan's father at the beginning, and hoped to revoke the marriage registration. In addition, she also said that she felt very guilty that she had not been with her son Lan for so many years, and she voluntarily gave up the inheritance of Lan's father's estate.

After consulting the opinions of Lan and "Chen", the Songyang County Procuratorate presided over and arranged for the mother and son to recognize each other. Afterwards, the prosecutor asked Lan: "Have you ever hated your mother?" Lan said: "Childhood without a mother does have a lot of bitterness. I used to hate my mother, but the moment I saw my mother, I found that I didn't hate her at all, and my mother always took me to heart and never let go of me. Lan's answer made the prosecutor very pleased, and at the same time happy for him - although his father was gone, he found his mother.

In order to safeguard the order of marriage registration and the legitimate rights and interests of the parties in accordance with the law, and to help applicants effectively solve problems, on July 7 this year, the Songyang County Procuratorate held a public hearing, inviting people's supervisors and people's congress deputies to serve as hearing officers, and inviting special procurators and representatives of banks, public security organs, judicial-administrative organs, and territorial townships and towns to participate in the hearing as observers.

The procurator in charge of the investigation displayed the marriage registration situation involved in the case, and introduced the preliminary handling of the case and the current focus of the problem. At the same time, the agent of the Songyang County Civil Affairs Bureau elaborated and explained the marriage registration situation involved in the case and the difficulties in performing duties.

Subsequently, the hearing officers asked questions on the spot about marriage registration and performance of duties, and expressed their hearing opinions based on their own professional knowledge. They unanimously held that the marriage registration involved in the case should be revoked, and that the procuratorial organs should supervise and urge the administrative organs to actively perform their duties in accordance with the law to protect the legitimate interests of the people.

The bank staff who participated in the hearing said that the procuratorial suggestion of the procuratorate and the documents of the civil affairs department to revoke the marriage registration are valid legal documents, and with these documents, the bank can assist Lan in handling the relevant withdrawal procedures.

After it was ascertained that Cheng's identity involved in the defendant in a criminal case reported his name, in order to protect judicial fairness and justice, the Songyang County Procuratorate promptly transferred the case clues to the criminal prosecution department of the relevant procuratorate. At present, the procuratorate has issued a procuratorial recommendation to the court, suggesting that the name and date of birth of the defendant Chen in the criminal verdict be corrected, and the criminal file should be corrected at the same time.

Now, Lan's troubles have been completely solved, and he has not only successfully inherited his father's inheritance, but also regained his hard-won family affection.

■ Prosecutor's statement

The revocation of marriage registration in this case is of great significance

Marriage is an important personal relationship, and is the basis of important personal rights such as spousal rights, inheritance rights, and parent-child rights.

In November 2021, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued the Guiding Opinions on Properly Handling the Issue of Marriage Registration by Impersonation or Fraud.

Although the applicant in this case, Lan, was not a party to the marriage registration, his substantive rights and interests were affected by the marriage registration, and he had exhausted his own remedies and could not resolve them. The procuratorate analyzed and judged that it belonged to the "other interested parties" in the "Guiding Opinions", and finally accepted the case.

Lan's father has died, is it necessary to revoke the false marriage registration? It has been argued that the marriage is automatically dissolved after the death of one of the parties to the marriage registration, and therefore it is considered unnecessary to revoke the marriage registration. However, the prosecutor believes that the automatic dissolution of this kind of marriage relationship refers to the termination of spousal rights, which will still produce legal consequences such as inheritance rights and parental rights, and after the marriage registration is revoked, the marriage is not protected by law from the beginning, and the parties to the marriage do not need to bear the obligation to support each other, do not enjoy the right of spousal inheritance, and the property obtained during the period of cohabitation can be resolved through negotiation or litigation.

Specifically, in this case, Lan's inheritance rights could not be successfully exercised because he still had a mother in legal inheritance. As the investigation deepened, the procuratorate found Lan's mother, who, as a party to the marriage registration, also said that she would revoke the false marriage registration. Therefore, on the premise that both the applicant and the parties have requested revocation, and the marriage registration itself is false, even if one of the parties to the marriage registration has died, it is still of great significance to revoke the marriage registration.

The procuratorial organ's handling of this case is a positive response to the Supreme People's Procuratorate's special activities to comprehensively deepen the administrative procuratorate's special activities to protect people's livelihood and interests in accordance with the law and effectively safeguard the rights and interests of the vulnerable people. In the process of handling the case, the procuratorial organs used big data thinking and integrated mechanisms, together with the procuratorial organs, public security organs and prisons of the two provinces and three regions, to fully exercise the right of investigation and verification, ascertain the facts of the case, and urge the administrative organs to take the initiative to revoke the false marriage registration, effectively safeguarding the order of marriage registration and the legitimate rights and interests of the parties. (Procuratorate Daily, Shi Jun, Lei Shuyan)