Testators are increasingly writing their will regarding the disposition of their property in the event of death in electronic form. This has led to a demand to recognize electronic wills, but the statutory rules for testamentary inheritance are still embedded in traditional framework of the form of wills. Testators must be careful to strictly adhere to the formal requirements that a will must meet, or else the will may be improperly composed and the court may declare it invalid. Consequently, legal succession would occur, which does not reflect the true intentions of the testator. When the writing is made on an electronic medium, it is called an electronic will. Electronic wills are not valid in most countries. However, some US states and the Canadian province of British Columbia have already legalized electronic wills, while in some other US states introduction of electronic wills is pending in the legislative process. The electronic will represents an innovative and modern way of testamentary disposition, combining existing formalities with newer approaches. Its introduction could be increasingly sensible in the future due to rapid technological development. However, security standards must be met regarding its authenticity and the belief that it expresses the true will of the testator. In the absence of explicit legal regulation of electronic wills, in some countries of the common law system, the doctrines of harmless error and substantial compliance may be used under certain conditions to assess the validity of a testator's will made in electronic form. This can remedy some less important defects made by the testator in the process of making a will, such as a missing signature of the testator or witness, an insufficient number of witnesses, their absence during the written will signing before witnesses, or the fact that the witnesses are not present at the same time. The choice of the medium on which the will is written and stored may also be considered inconsistent to comply with formal requirements, which means that the will does not meet two fundamental requirements: written form and a handwritten signature. In this dissertation, the question arises whether it would be appropriate to introduce similar doctrines in Slovenian inheritance law, which could be useful not only for electronic wills but also for eliminating formal defects.
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