Apud declan_murphy@hotmail.com (sci.lang.japan) hoc legimus:
>Kevin Gowen wrote:
>> There is also the issue of what constitutes a valid will in each
>> jurisdiction. For example, in some US states, holographic wills (wills
>> written in longhand by the testator, usually unwitnessed) are
>> recognized. Florida does not recognize unwitnessed holographs. I've not
>> read the Japanese or Australian laws on this issue, but it's at least a
>> possibility.

>My will in NSW was written in the offices of the Public Trustee, and
>then witnessed therein. 

If the NSW Public Trustee's Office is like the Victorian one, as well as
its statutary role of being trustees for various classes of people, it
also does a will-writing and estate-executor service. In this latter role
it is a pure commercial fee-for-service operation. It has no different
status to any other will-writing approach. You may as well go to your
local gowen(TM) or do as I did and use a do-it-yourself kit.

> So I'm guessing that it would basically be a
>matter of whether the will was recognised in Japan or not. I've
>contacted the embassy to see if they have any info 

I'd be interested to see if that statement in the JT book is supported.

>(I'm going out on a
>limb and taking the risk of assuming people have died before).

Silly twisted boy.

>> Another wrinkle is that Australia is an Anglo-American common law
>> system, while Japan is a quasi-civil law system. For example, there is
>> no equivalent to the 公証人 in Australia.

>I was under the impression that the 公証人 was basically the
>equivalent of a notary public, and that the gig involved performing
>similar duties to those in Australia. 

The European civil-law notary (and the Japanese 公証人) really
has no equivalent in Australia. I am at one with KG on this.

>I am aware that there is a
>difference between notaries public in Oz and the US, with those in the
>latter being a dime a dozen so to speak.

In the case of Australia, yes we have public notaries for two
reasons:

(a) to give the legal profession (sic) another reason for self-gratification,
sticking extra letters after their names and charging outrageous
fees for little more than wanking;

(b) to soothe people in other countries who can't accept that a document
is valid unless it bears the anal imprint of a notary.

So irrelevant was the "title" of public notary here that in Victoria
at least until recently the only way to become one was to get a certificate 
and seal issued by <drumroll>the Archbishop of Canterbury</drumroll>!!
A few years back a "Public Notaries Act" was passed, and now they are
issued  by the Chief Justice of the (state) Supreme Court. As I said
they are irrelevant within our legal system. 

-- 
Jim Breen        http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia 
ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学