TESTAMENTARY WISHES: CONTROLLING THE LIVING FROM THE GRAVE IN A DIGITAL AGE

Abstract

While it is generally believed that the dead do not have the right to vote, marry, divorce, sue for libel or slander or enforce their medical privacy rights, it is essential to note that death does not end all legal rights. This article investigates the profound and often unsettling phenomenon of the posthumous capacity of the dead to shape and control the living through instructions. It also states that the drive to exert control from beyond the grave is not merely a passive one, but a force to reshape the contours of the relationship between the living and the dead. It explains that though the rights of the dead favour the dead, their enforcements are means of controlling the living from the graves. This research employs a triangulated qualitative methodology, integrating socio-technical analysis that facilitates posthumous control. It also adopts a conceptual legal, philosophical and ethical analysis to map the unresolved tensions between posthumous directives and the rights of the living. The article concludes that controlling the living from the grave is a critical lens through which the power dynamics, psychological dependencies, and ethical frontiers of our interconnected world are examined. It proffers social-legal recommendations that will navigate the new reality required for moving the relationship between the dead and the living beyond the established cultural and legal reckoning.