If your existence is an edge case no lawyer can help you. As the article said, even the justice minister of France is aware of the issue, yet not willing to act on it.

A much less severe version of this is changing your first name (or, indeed, gender marker). Systems are only now gaining the ability to even change some of these records, but often it is up to the people with limited access to these systems to "work around" them. Whenever possible I didn't even ask to change my name, just close one account and make another. Including with a bank that actually suggested I do this.

> If your existence is an edge case no lawyer can help you

This happens occasionally in the U.S. Two recent cases:

- Alecia Faith Pennington: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/invis...

- Jamie Lanosga: https://gazette.com/news/born-in-the-usa-without-a-shred-of-...

It is a major hassle to establish your legal identity as an adult. It seems to take a politician intervening.

I wonder, would it be any different if the government had biometrics for your identity on hand from a period where you were deemed alive? For instance, I've fingerprints on file with the SEC due to prior work in finance. I'm pretty sure government jobs requiring a security clearance would have similar. Or having an arrest record?

Why would she not be able to sue for recognition as a living person?

Part of filing for a suit is proving that you have the right to represent the individual. Usually this is easy, as most people are recognisable (leaglly) as representing themselves.

As the individual is officially deceased, you need some documentation from before they were recognised as such, granting their rights to a recognisable individual.

That is, the lawyer needs to be granted the right to represent her, but she probably doesn't currently have the necessary legal paperwork to give them that. She can't represent her own estate - she's legally dead.

She had trouble even getting a lawyer to take her as a client. People that don't exist can probably not file lawsuits either.

>People that don't exist can probably not file lawsuits either.

Haha, very Kafka!

Seriously, though, I find it hard to imagine that this is an impossible case.

This article sounds like bullshit and I am sure I could handle this without a lawyer in "administrative court". I filed 4 law suits in administrative courts in my country and won them all. I used a lawyer only once in another EU country for my girl friend since I did not speak the local language. In hind sight I may have done it myself since my language should have been recognized as a minority language in court in this country. But the lawyer was only 300 Euro.

This is still the west and courts still work. Don't be intimidated.

> I filed

First potential hitch. How do you file legal paperwork in the name of someone who is dead? Do you have ID to prove who you are? While you can probably file a court case without photo ID, you can't file anonymously in most jurisdictions. And you can't use a fraudulent identity like the name of some dead person...

Easy solution: File with the IRS, ask since you are dead, you don't owe any future taxes, right?

Trust me. Things will start moving very quickly.

Exceed the speed limit. Reject the fine claiming you are dead.

Trust me. The possibilities are endless and take my word, I would enjoy them.

You may really be underestimating the blind nature of these systems. There is no single human with the clear authority and ability to alter the rule-making architecture giving these results. They all feel powerless and try to pass it up the chain (all the way to the minister responsible in the national government apparently, who also seems helpless!). As to enjoying being legally dead? I guess you don't have diabetes meds to worry about like the woman in France :)

You would be surprised what a judge can do in countries with rule of law.

"I am not a lawyer but insist I know more than many lawyers"

that doesn't mean you know more than them... or know any given law more than any given lawyer. it doesn't mean anything other than you've won administrative court appearances 4 times. what jurisdiction were those in, anyway? is that jurisdiction representative of all other jurisdictions? absolutely not.

Which only proves that you have some expertise in a small subset of the law: that which has affected you personally.

I don't understand all the downvotes by idiots.

Yes, I am not a lawyer. Never claimed to be one. I have worked with law in two jurisdictions, incl. US. The fields were:

1. Patent law (I am not a patent lawyer either)

2. Regulatory (speak FDA)

While you can screw up, law is not that difficult. It is even easier in countries with codified law.

Calling those that disagree with you idiots is probably not a good—faith attempt at communicating.

And then the police hold you in jail until your identity can be confirmed.

Or worse, transfer you to the morgue.

not when they get slammed with your "abuse of a corpse" lawsuit

I have several passports. Not a good idea to be honest. My embassies would get involved pretty fast :-)

Consular services will generally not protect you against another country whose nationality you hold.

You wouldn’t in this case. All her identifying documents were rendered invalid when she was declared dead.

Please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments and/or personal swipes to HN. We ban accounts that do these things.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Since you are dead, you have no income, so you are right. IRS is not a monster, it's bureaucracy. If the system says you are dead, you are dead. Same with the fine, it won't reach you because you are dead.

What's worse you have no rights because dead people have very limited rights.