14 ms·

A woman's battle to prove she isn't dead

154 points by edward 5y ago

MeteorMarc 5y ago
Reminds me of a story by H. Mulisch in which someone dies lying across the border between jurisdictions. The one jurisdiction serves bodies when the head is in, the other when the larger part of the body is in. The body stayed where it was...
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  That's how the bilingual Canadian film Bon Cop, Bad Cop starts. A body is discovered on Quebec-Ontario border. To solve the murder case, an anglophone Ontario cop and a francophone Quebec cop have to team up.
  - LinAGKar 5y ago
    And it's also the start of the Swedish-Danish TV series The Bridge. A body is found on the Öresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden, and a Swedish and Danish cop has to cooperate (with the Swedish one being a woman with Asperger's). Of course in that case, Swedish and Danish are mutually intelligible.
    - Taniwha 5y ago
      And a rework of that in english between England and France called "The Tunnel"
joombaga 5y ago
"she can only have a Covid vaccination if she joins the waiting list as a homeless person." ... "she has finally been able to get her first Covid vaccination, although she had to pay €150 for it" Do the homeless have to pay for covid vaccination in France?
- lstamour 5y ago
  No, she likely found another option to acquire the vaccine.
- NoPie 5y ago
  It seems strange. The most expensive vaccine is Pfizer and it costs about 30 euros. A doctor administering vaccine could charge maybe another €30. Of course, you could find a private clinic or something which charges €150 but then why mention waiting list for homeless? I believe that people can get mistakenly declared dead and depending on how corrupted the legal system is, it may be almost impossible to reverse the decision. I wouldn't expect this in France however. Maybe, a year or two to resolve if the bureaucracy is moving slowly. There is something that is missing in this article. I can buy that the court had a gullible judge or something but what about other institutions that award social security or medical care? Wouldn't they need a death certificate? And if they had made a mistake wouldn't they try to correct it? In Latvia there is central register of all persons. Some people immigrate to other countries and then die there and the register never gets updated, therefore according to this register we have a lot of people over 100 years old. You could go to the court to make a case that a certain person has disappeared for really long time, so he must be dead by now. I have never heard about such cases being reversed but theoretically someone still could return from abroad alive. I don't think that the state would refuse to correct their mistake unless it was a question of national security or a lot of money was involved.
- justshowpost 5y ago
  Its The Guardian, don't expect any decent information there, but rather expect the current agenda. Probably, that overpriced vaccination anecdote was inserted to battle so called vaccine hesitation. «Hurry up, even dead Brunnen-G are getting their shot!»
FpUser 5y ago
Stories like this make my blood boil. How fucked up the system must be to allow such abuse. But of course they're human loving democracy. Bureaucrats who could fix it in a minute but instead prefer the person being tortured would definitely benefit spending some time in Gulag. And the cherry on top. I di not know that free person in France can not legally move without Ausweis. Nice.
- Aerroon 5y ago
  It makes my blood boil too. I think this is one of those cases in life where you have to make as much noise as possible. When people feel uncomfortable enough they'll be more likely to resolve your situation so that you stop shouting at them.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    Noise is good, but it means you have to have a great filter, because trolls exist and will enjoy torturing this woman and her supporters with malicious statements. It's not a matter of if, but when, this happens. In fact, there's a type of trolling that's become endemic in the US which allows that you are responsible for your situation, and if your situation is good you must deserve it (prosperity gospel), and if it's bad, you must deserve it too (prosperity gospel's evil twin). But the noise will attract the trolls as well as supporters, and she's got to be prepared for it. And it sounds like she's not psychologically well (as one would expect) so its a serious downside to making noise.
- ElViajero 5y ago
  > Bureaucrats who could fix it in a minute That is not how this works. Bureaucrats needs to legally be instructed to change the register, "I saw something yesterday on TV and I am going to change official records" would be the worse bureaucracy ever. A bureaucrat that did such a change would end out of a job and maybe in prison for a good reason. > How fucked up the system must be to allow such abuse. The "system" works for millions of people. One weird case and you want to throw away the complete system. Google or Facebook close accounts randomly, meanwhile the state is able to keep proper records for a century with minimum mistakes. Yes, it is bad for this woman. Yes, they need to fix her case. No, it is not a reason to throw away a system that works. > France From the article, this also happened in Ohio. "In 2013, an Ohio judge ruled that Donald E Miller Jr would have to stay legally deceased, even though Miller was sitting in the courtroom to hear his fate, perfectly healthy. He had been declared dead in 1994 after having disappeared in 1986, owing thousands of dollars in unpaid child support. His ex-wife had requested Miller be declared dead so she would eligible for social security benefits. When Miller returned – he had been working out of state – he was told that Ohio cannot reverse death certificates after more than three years." > I did not know that free person in France can not legally move without Ausweis. Not in France nor in the USA. Try to move around the USA without a birth certificate and you are going to find how many problems you have to access properties and a job. Even in the Roman Empire you needed a birth certificate to prove ownership of land.
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Assuming dead people can't be charged for crimes, I wonder if she can just start threatening to shoot politicians/judges in the head and tell them "Go ahead and file a police complaint, at least you'll resurrect me if you want to charge me."...
- krapp 5y ago
  No. Being "declared dead" doesn't mean the state is required to pretend you're actually dead, rather it means you're "dead" as a legal entity as far as the bureaucracy is concerned - your assets will be distributed as necessary, you can't have a drivers' license, passport, can't vote, etc. If you commit a crime while declared dead, obviously you'll just be arrested and tried like anyone else.
  - nkssy 5y ago
    Who will be charged? A legally dead person. Nice. That will be fun to write up. But they will. Because they're idiots.
    - krapp 5y ago
      They would be idiots not to. Otherwise, getting some crooked doctor or administrator to declare you dead would mean you could never be charged with a crime.
    - javajosh 5y ago
      Of course they will. When legal details becomes an obstacle for what the state wants, the details are brushed aside as unimportant with an appeal to "common sense". When those same details are an obstacle to what an individual wants, we're sorry, it's not our fault, that's just what the law requires and we must follow the law, even if we don't want to. And if you have a complaint, there's a process for that. It may take a great deal of effort on your part, and years of waiting, but again, that's just the process and there's nothing to be done.
      - 5y ago
nkssy 5y ago
Surely this is a human rights violation? And there is fraud involved. Identify theft. Theft of assets. Likely corruption as well. False imprisonment. Harassment. The list goes on. So does the administrative incompetance of both the government and legal systems. The threat about driving is hilarious. So she drives, gets caught driving or speeding. Who are they then going to charge? Whatever answer you come up with, the response will be: But she's dead. Now what? They'll have to charge her. Won't that be hilarious: charging a dead person. For driving. Take that to court. The seizure of assets thing. Linking the car as her asset has to be incompetant policing. The deceased estate has to close off sometime. So add that to the list as well. In reality they know she's alive and they just don't want to fix it because they simply don't want to. The case where her identity was deemed dead just has to be overturned - the fact they won't implies they don't want to. Just because. More corruption. What a mess.
- drdeadringer 5y ago
  > The threat about driving is hilarious. So she drives, gets caught driving or speeding. Who are they then going to charge? Whatever answer you come up with, the response will be: But she's dead. Now what? They'll have to charge her. Won't that be hilarious: charging a dead person. For driving. Take that to court. Say this happens in America. The defendant files for habeas corpus. "Here I am, Your Honor, filing for my own body to be produced for trial. Shall I leave and walk back in or will it suffice for your bailiff to say that I am in fact standing in front of you making this motion? Thank you."
  - nkssy 5y ago
    Yet this likely wouldn't help. This is how messed up the whole thing can get. From the article: In 2013, an Ohio judge ruled that Donald E Miller Jr would have to stay legally deceased, even though Miller was sitting in the courtroom to hear his fate, perfectly healthy. He had been declared dead in 1994.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    > So she drives, gets caught driving or speeding. Who are they then going to charge? A Jane Doe, who is also refusing to identify herself, by falsely giving the name of a dead person.
Cyykratahk 5y ago
I don't understand why the author leaves many words and phrases untranslated. They have translated everything else, but why leave "carte d’identité" or "grande école"? Why say "mairie (town hall)" instead of just saying town hall? These are not loan words that exist in English, and the untranslated words themselves did not seem essential to the story. I've seen a similar issue with Anime fansubs where the translator deems certain words to be untranslatable, and then adds an entire extra sentence of definition on screen upon the first usage.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  The entire story is set in France. Perhaps they don't add anything for you but for me they give the story a more French flavour. And anyway town hall is not an precise translation for mairie. In my home town in the south of England a more correct equivalent would be civic offices. Also in the UK reporting a death is done online these days, definitely not at the town hall. Actually I don't know for sure how these things are done in France but that they are done differently seems certain.
  - Igelau 5y ago
    US reader checking in. If they'd translated it as "town hall" I'd assume they were talking about a dreadful televised political rally.
- ericd 5y ago
  Maybe because "grande école" literally means "big school", but it's essentially a proper noun in French, similar to their version of "Ivy League"? Not sure why for the others you mention, except that they're very specific concepts in France as well, which don't really have very good analogues in the US. Or maybe they just like the sound of the French word and want to sound more sophisticated.
- Aerroon 5y ago
  Perhaps these are specific names? I could call the US 'Congress' as 'Parliament', but 'Congress' is probably the better choice. >I've seen a similar issue with Anime fansubs where the translator deems certain words to be untranslatable, Yes, as it should be. This is why official translations suck and fansubs are superior works.
zzzpaz 5y ago
Reminds me of The Late Mattia Pascal romance
krakov 5y ago
And yet it is possible to fix given an agreed-upon validator on being alive /being trustable (the french goverment), assuming she still lives by then. In our decentralized future[1] this kind of error will be impossible to rectify, as long as someone believes you are dead or just untrustable. 1. Companies like https://www.identiq.com/ https://www.identiq.com/ (they are far from only ones)
- racnid 5y ago
  Schemes like that only work if you participate. Even in America we have people that refuse to participate in the birth certificate and social security scheme for better or for (mostly) worse.
FpUser 5y ago
I think she should be right to apply to European Human Rights (or whatever it is called) court. May be this will shame those pathetic scumbags enough.
- skissane 5y ago
  The European Court of Human Rights can take years to reach a decision. It has a case backlog of over 60,000 cases. It has only 47 judges. That's over 1000 pending cases per a judge.
  - FpUser 5y ago
    Ouch. Then what's the recourse? She is being denied basic human rights. Maybe the simple fact of applying and trying to make it to a publication/social media will make someone move their sorry ass? I live in Canada and we have our own stories of people becoming non persons (stateless). It is horrible that those take years and decades to resolve. It is beyond my understanding how we can claim being civilized countries and still allow crime like this to take place and have no special laws to fix such gross fuck-ups promptly.
    - skissane 5y ago
      In the long-term the solution is reform of the European Convention on Human Rights. National courts should enforce human rights. The European Court should essentially be an appellate court only, which hears appeals from the national courts. They've been slowly working towards that goal. Protocol 16, which allows national courts to request advisory opinions from the ECHR, is a step towards that. But it is a difficult journey because some member states don't want to see the ECHR become more effective.
      - FpUser 5y ago
        I know a short term solution. Here is the local Canadian example. I forgot the exact details as I read it long time ago. The basic idea was that that the government scammed a man of his money and then was taking their time (years of course) to return. Somehow this man managed to convince the court so the police just came to a government office in Montreal and shut it down threatening to confiscate all the property. Suddenly the whole thing got resolved in few days. Basically the idea is that in cases like this the government must be made hurting and there are plenty of ways to make them really hurting without doing anything extreme. Just suspend the salary of the whole office and see how their attention span suddenly change. And whoever voted in laws allowing such a gross fuck ups - fine them for negligence when introducing laws without safety measures built in, or give them all inclusive accommodation in Club Fed. I hear a lot of blubbering here advocating people to be jailed for not following proper security with infrastructure software. Well I think the cases like the one mentioned should be a higher priority.
pcrh 5y ago
This seems to be a clear case of fraud by whoever had her declared dead. As well as earlier incompetence by whoever handled the transfer of Mme H's employment records. Further, Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law." She needs a better lawyer....
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  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.
  - pcrh 5y ago
    Why would she not be able to sue for recognition as a living person?
    - sascha_sl 5y ago
      She had trouble even getting a lawyer to take her as a client. People that don't exist can probably not file lawsuits either.
      - pcrh 5y ago
        >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.
    - shakna 5y ago
      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.
vfclists 5y ago
The legal system is an inherently corrupt system which deals with human beings as what is called a "legal fiction". Live humans are seen by the legal system as entities which make the "legal fiction" profitable to interact with.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Igelau 5y ago
  Indeed, this doesn't seem to be anything remotely resembling Justice. It is more like a legal system churning with no idea what principles it is supposed to uphold.
hanche 5y ago
This is apparently a common problem in India. There is even an “Association of dead people”. https://www.improbable.com/2020/12/09/update-on-film-about-founder-of-the-association-of-dead-people/ https://www.improbable.com/2020/12/09/update-on-film-about-f... Update: That is actually mentioned in the article. I had only skimmed it, and missed that somehow. Oops.
xaedes 5y ago
This reminds me of "The Machine Fired Me - No human could do a thing about it!" [1], where a guy got fired by some bug in the system and no one could stop or reverse it. It was posted on HN [2] three years agos. [1] https://idiallo.com/blog/when-a-machine-fired-me https://idiallo.com/blog/when-a-machine-fired-me [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17350645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17350645
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
norvvryo 5y ago
This reminds me of the "I Will Kill You & Birth You" DEFCON presentation by Chris Rock. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs
- KirillPanov 5y ago
  Holy poop that video is hilarious. And great. Summary to convince you the link is clickworthy: Basically death certificates are the "identity system" version of free(). They're how identities (which are valuable) become no longer valid. He shows how to hack this, which is much easier than the malloc() side since adult death certificates are valid immediately whereas adult birth certificates need to be aged (at least) 18 years. It is stupidly easy to get certified as one of the roles (coroner, funeral director, etc) that are allowed to file death reports, which nowadays are just text boxes and clicking on a webpage. This results in a death certificate listing whatever the attacker desires. In particular, they get to declare the next of kin. These declarations fail to be validated shockingly often. End results are (a) life insurance fraud (b) probate fraud and (c) pretty vicious revenge served cold, since getting declared dead causes a ton of huge problems for the target but not for a while (e.g. when passports come up for renewal). His delivery is also awesome, a bunch of really funny deadpan jokes. Best quote: slide title "reasons for killing someone". Last bullet point "Kill your opposing lawyer, the judge, or IRS auditor to slow them down."
ezoe 5y ago
Keeping it legally dead is absurd. What if she commit a crime? "Your honor. She has alibi. She was dead when it happened."
mikem170 5y ago
This is a big problem with large bureaucracies. They can be inhumane. It's not good that we are forced more and more as individuals to be subservient to them.
- petre 5y ago
  One could move to another bureaucracy and maybe apply for residency? At least in the Schengen area a person could freely move without showing documents, although covid made that more difficult as well.
  - arp242 5y ago
    I'm not sure how that would help; you're still going to have to show your ID to get stuff with the government done in whatever Schengen country you are. You may be able to get away with some things before your ID and passport expire, but after that you're screwed (and from the looks of things, her ID and passport already expired).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Causality1 5y ago
I wonder, if the law refuses to admit you exist, can it prosecute you for a crime?
- x4e 5y ago
  Yes, the same way the law can prosecute you if you refuse to identify yourself
JimTheMan 5y ago
This story is missing the key detail on who/how/what the process was for declaring her dead. The journalist needed to go the extra step here and didn't.
- Tijdreiziger 5y ago
  No, it's in the article: > Later, Pouchain’s lawyer, Sylvain Cormier, tells me the solicitor’s letter informing Pouchain the industrial tribunal case was being dropped was probably a phoney pause, while Mme H’s lawyer drew breath to relaunch the case. Sometime afterwards, the case returned to court – where it was said that Pouchain had died and that her “heirs” would be asked to settle. “This should not have happened,” Cormier says. > [...] > “When Mme Pouchain first told me her story, I found it hard to believe,” says Cormier. “I said, ‘It’s just not possible.’ But I read the files and it is – everything she told me was unbelievable but perfectly true. It appears there was no certificate of death, it was just taken on someone’s word. Nobody checked.”
- toss1 5y ago
  um, about the 8th paragraph: "The letter informed her that a lawyer in a court case relating to her cleaning business had told the court that she had died, aged 53, in February 2016. Somehow, this unverified claim – there was no official death certificate, how could there be? – was allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged." Then further down: "“It was a trap, an ambush. She couldn’t win the proceedings while I was alive, so she had me declared dead,”" It appears that the woman (or attorney) suing her for some employment error claimed she was dead to be able to get an advantage in their lawsuit, and to be able to go after her "heirs".
theli0nheart 5y ago
I wonder, who are they actually fining if she’s dead? Does she have immunity from pretty much anything that would be illegal?
- nathcd 5y ago
  The story says the fines fell to her heirs - her husband and son. It says their bank accounts were frozen and the bailiffs took her husband's car to settle part of the fine.
  - theli0nheart 5y ago
    My god, what a horrible transgression of human rights. Someone should answer for these crimes. Insanity.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
This is not an impossible situation due to legalities. This is an impossible situation due to judges, ministers, officials etc unwilling to fix it! It’s just a mix of malice, apathy, incompetence. Ministers and highly placed officials or even heads of the state have stepped in for lesser inconveniences. A person is in front of you - literally living and breathing - what the f else do you need to establish that person is alive!
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  They wouldn't deny that _a_ person is alive. They need more to establish the fact that this is actually the person they claim to be. This is way different for the bank teller that's known her for 30 years. They know who's standing in front of them (presumably). Way different for someone that's never met this person. The bar is higher. These guys would would want more than just the one bank teller to affidavit that this actually is the person that all records show is actually deceased. Depending on country and their bureaucracy (she does seem to be in France, so ...) this could be quite hard.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    It doesn't seem like it should be that hard. We do it routinely. My kids have passports, and what did they have to prove they were alive and who I claimed them to be? Their birth certificate, and a sworn statement by me. It should be fairly simple to get an equivalent. A sworn statement by her husband, perhaps. Her mother, if still alive. Or heck, by now there might be biological records that can be matched up (e.g. dental). This should be a fairly easy procedural fix.
    - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
      Well, consider: someone who is documented as dead appears with a birth certificate. Do you a) assume that this person is the (presumably) deceased person, or b) assume that a living person is trying to steal a deceased person's identity? The problem is that we're really poorly equipped to handle problems of identity. It's hard to prove that you are you, absent documentation. Documentation usually issued by a government, or by a private agency on behalf of a government. And if that government thinks you're dead, well, all that documentation is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on. Short of, say, a dental, medical or DNA match, then yeah, this is a really hard procedural fix.
mabbo 5y ago
I wonder: if the government refuses to acknowledge a citizen is a living person, with the rights endowed to all living citizens, can they prosecute or imprison such a person? In Mdm Pouchain's shoes, I would likely attempt to commit some minor crime. When brought before the court, I would argue: you cannot punish a dead person. So you must either legally declare me alive so we can continue, or let me go. And if they choose the latter option, the logical next step is escalation of the crimes. Damn, this would be a really fun novel
- gota 5y ago
  They do mention police threathened to arrest her for "driving while dead". I don't put it beyond bureaucracy to imprison a "corpse" just because it's more convenient I did imagine something along those lines while reading, though. She'd made a badass invincible assassin for hire
- kbenson 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure they can prosecute John/Jane Does, so I don't think they'll have any problem saying she's not who she says she is, because that person is dead, but she is someone, even if they don't know who.
- selestify 5y ago
  Or... because you no longer exist as a legal entity, everyone has free reign to hurt you in any way they please without legal repercussions
  - thatguy0900 5y ago
    This is actually the original definition of an outlaw. You were outside of the law, and no longer under its protections.
- caseysoftware 5y ago
  More likely, she would be the French equivalent of a "Jane Doe" or someone else who they could not prove their identity. The more questionable/compelling scenario would be if she had some sort of contract in her name - loan, credit card, lease, whatever - and whether it could be enforced. At that point, the plaintiff would have to prove that a) the contract was valid and b) it was with her. Of course, since she doesn't have any form of ID, whatever notarization-equivalent wouldn't be possible. Or maybe, that's the loophole? Sign a contract with her for some small sum. She breaches the contract. Now sue her to prove her status and identity? My God, what a mess.
utterboredom 5y ago
Since she has children, couldn’t they verify maternity through DNA?
- julienreszka 5y ago
  DNA tests are known to be unreliable
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Proven 5y ago
This is what happens in a system in which citizens depend on the government. Today it's by mistake, tomorrow based in social credit.
slowwwclap 5y ago
This also happened to me in the US. IRS flagged me as deceased. Institutions acted on it. Closed accounts. Condolence letters. Clerical error at local office it was deemed. No culprit. No repair action. Took 2 years of bonkers discussions with copious notes and pain on a biweekly follow-up basis to resolve. You are the only one who can fix your problems with a spaghetti mess like this. You must lead it to the finish line.
julienreszka 5y ago
Sounds like bullshit, I have a very hard time believing this story is true.
andreskytt 5y ago
That is the price to pay if you do not want to implement a comprehensive resident database with unique identifiers. Which UK refuses to do. It’s a choice I do not get (it demonstrably does not lead to a surveillance state and does not stop fraudulent profiling of people) but it’s theirs to make. It comes with consequences, though.
hrbf 5y ago
This has more to do with bureaucratic unwillingness to admit to mistakes than anything else. This is what you get when everyone in the decision chain is just doing what they are “supposed to do”, without giving it a second thought. According to the article, it’s pretty clear that no death certificate was ever filed, which appears to be a requirement in France. So there’s even a formal error that should void the procedure that followed. This readily demonstrates the unwillingness and compartmentalization at play here. I’m in a similar but different situation due to fictional health insurance costs. In Germany, public health insurance cost is calculated based on your income, with a hard cap at the top. I’ve had very little to no income for a couple of years. Due to a procedural error, I was charged the maximum amount. I’m fighting this for 9 years now and have to deal with constant harassment and ballooning debt north of 35k EUR, most of which is entirely invented but is collected on with the full force of law enforcement. Any attempt to find an agreeable solution failed. It’s obvious to anyone looking at the facts that money is wanted that never existed in the first place. A dozen employees of the insurance even admitted to that fact. Still, they won’t change the order because they feel they can’t. No one wants to be in the position to explain an auditor why 30k+ of outstanding payments were dropped. It’s as simple as that. My life has been hell at times due to that. The drones don’t care. They just want to do what is expected of them. It doesn’t matter if it destroys lives. It appears that the only way out now is to declare bankruptcy. Which appears to be fine with them. They end up getting nothing at all, not even the clearly owed amounts, but that’s fine because it’s “procedurally correct” and no one may end up in the hot seat. Except me of course.
- Flimm 5y ago
  That's awful. :(

154 points by edward 5y ago

Reminds me of a story by H. Mulisch in which someone dies lying across the border between jurisdictions. The one jurisdiction serves bodies when the head is in, the other when the larger part of the body is in. The body stayed where it was...

smnrchrds 5y ago
That's how the bilingual Canadian film Bon Cop, Bad Cop starts. A body is discovered on Quebec-Ontario border. To solve the murder case, an anglophone Ontario cop and a francophone Quebec cop have to team up.
- LinAGKar 5y ago
  And it's also the start of the Swedish-Danish TV series The Bridge. A body is found on the Öresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden, and a Swedish and Danish cop has to cooperate (with the Swedish one being a woman with Asperger's). Of course in that case, Swedish and Danish are mutually intelligible.
  - Taniwha 5y ago
    And a rework of that in english between England and France called "The Tunnel"

joombaga 5y ago

"she can only have a Covid vaccination if she joins the waiting list as a homeless person." ... "she has finally been able to get her first Covid vaccination, although she had to pay €150 for it" Do the homeless have to pay for covid vaccination in France?

lstamour 5y ago
No, she likely found another option to acquire the vaccine.
NoPie 5y ago
It seems strange. The most expensive vaccine is Pfizer and it costs about 30 euros. A doctor administering vaccine could charge maybe another €30. Of course, you could find a private clinic or something which charges €150 but then why mention waiting list for homeless? I believe that people can get mistakenly declared dead and depending on how corrupted the legal system is, it may be almost impossible to reverse the decision. I wouldn't expect this in France however. Maybe, a year or two to resolve if the bureaucracy is moving slowly. There is something that is missing in this article. I can buy that the court had a gullible judge or something but what about other institutions that award social security or medical care? Wouldn't they need a death certificate? And if they had made a mistake wouldn't they try to correct it? In Latvia there is central register of all persons. Some people immigrate to other countries and then die there and the register never gets updated, therefore according to this register we have a lot of people over 100 years old. You could go to the court to make a case that a certain person has disappeared for really long time, so he must be dead by now. I have never heard about such cases being reversed but theoretically someone still could return from abroad alive. I don't think that the state would refuse to correct their mistake unless it was a question of national security or a lot of money was involved.
justshowpost 5y ago
Its The Guardian, don't expect any decent information there, but rather expect the current agenda. Probably, that overpriced vaccination anecdote was inserted to battle so called vaccine hesitation. «Hurry up, even dead Brunnen-G are getting their shot!»

FpUser 5y ago

Stories like this make my blood boil. How fucked up the system must be to allow such abuse. But of course they're human loving democracy. Bureaucrats who could fix it in a minute but instead prefer the person being tortured would definitely benefit spending some time in Gulag. And the cherry on top. I di not know that free person in France can not legally move without Ausweis. Nice.

Aerroon 5y ago
It makes my blood boil too. I think this is one of those cases in life where you have to make as much noise as possible. When people feel uncomfortable enough they'll be more likely to resolve your situation so that you stop shouting at them.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Noise is good, but it means you have to have a great filter, because trolls exist and will enjoy torturing this woman and her supporters with malicious statements. It's not a matter of if, but when, this happens. In fact, there's a type of trolling that's become endemic in the US which allows that you are responsible for your situation, and if your situation is good you must deserve it (prosperity gospel), and if it's bad, you must deserve it too (prosperity gospel's evil twin). But the noise will attract the trolls as well as supporters, and she's got to be prepared for it. And it sounds like she's not psychologically well (as one would expect) so its a serious downside to making noise.
ElViajero 5y ago
> Bureaucrats who could fix it in a minute That is not how this works. Bureaucrats needs to legally be instructed to change the register, "I saw something yesterday on TV and I am going to change official records" would be the worse bureaucracy ever. A bureaucrat that did such a change would end out of a job and maybe in prison for a good reason. > How fucked up the system must be to allow such abuse. The "system" works for millions of people. One weird case and you want to throw away the complete system. Google or Facebook close accounts randomly, meanwhile the state is able to keep proper records for a century with minimum mistakes. Yes, it is bad for this woman. Yes, they need to fix her case. No, it is not a reason to throw away a system that works. > France From the article, this also happened in Ohio. "In 2013, an Ohio judge ruled that Donald E Miller Jr would have to stay legally deceased, even though Miller was sitting in the courtroom to hear his fate, perfectly healthy. He had been declared dead in 1994 after having disappeared in 1986, owing thousands of dollars in unpaid child support. His ex-wife had requested Miller be declared dead so she would eligible for social security benefits. When Miller returned – he had been working out of state – he was told that Ohio cannot reverse death certificates after more than three years." > I did not know that free person in France can not legally move without Ausweis. Not in France nor in the USA. Try to move around the USA without a birth certificate and you are going to find how many problems you have to access properties and a job. Even in the Roman Empire you needed a birth certificate to prove ownership of land.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago

Assuming dead people can't be charged for crimes, I wonder if she can just start threatening to shoot politicians/judges in the head and tell them "Go ahead and file a police complaint, at least you'll resurrect me if you want to charge me."...

krapp 5y ago
No. Being "declared dead" doesn't mean the state is required to pretend you're actually dead, rather it means you're "dead" as a legal entity as far as the bureaucracy is concerned - your assets will be distributed as necessary, you can't have a drivers' license, passport, can't vote, etc. If you commit a crime while declared dead, obviously you'll just be arrested and tried like anyone else.
- nkssy 5y ago
  Who will be charged? A legally dead person. Nice. That will be fun to write up. But they will. Because they're idiots.
  - krapp 5y ago
    They would be idiots not to. Otherwise, getting some crooked doctor or administrator to declare you dead would mean you could never be charged with a crime.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    Of course they will. When legal details becomes an obstacle for what the state wants, the details are brushed aside as unimportant with an appeal to "common sense". When those same details are an obstacle to what an individual wants, we're sorry, it's not our fault, that's just what the law requires and we must follow the law, even if we don't want to. And if you have a complaint, there's a process for that. It may take a great deal of effort on your part, and years of waiting, but again, that's just the process and there's nothing to be done.
    - 5y ago

nkssy 5y ago

Surely this is a human rights violation? And there is fraud involved. Identify theft. Theft of assets. Likely corruption as well. False imprisonment. Harassment. The list goes on. So does the administrative incompetance of both the government and legal systems. The threat about driving is hilarious. So she drives, gets caught driving or speeding. Who are they then going to charge? Whatever answer you come up with, the response will be: But she's dead. Now what? They'll have to charge her. Won't that be hilarious: charging a dead person. For driving. Take that to court. The seizure of assets thing. Linking the car as her asset has to be incompetant policing. The deceased estate has to close off sometime. So add that to the list as well. In reality they know she's alive and they just don't want to fix it because they simply don't want to. The case where her identity was deemed dead just has to be overturned - the fact they won't implies they don't want to. Just because. More corruption. What a mess.

drdeadringer 5y ago
> The threat about driving is hilarious. So she drives, gets caught driving or speeding. Who are they then going to charge? Whatever answer you come up with, the response will be: But she's dead. Now what? They'll have to charge her. Won't that be hilarious: charging a dead person. For driving. Take that to court. Say this happens in America. The defendant files for habeas corpus. "Here I am, Your Honor, filing for my own body to be produced for trial. Shall I leave and walk back in or will it suffice for your bailiff to say that I am in fact standing in front of you making this motion? Thank you."
- nkssy 5y ago
  Yet this likely wouldn't help. This is how messed up the whole thing can get. From the article: In 2013, an Ohio judge ruled that Donald E Miller Jr would have to stay legally deceased, even though Miller was sitting in the courtroom to hear his fate, perfectly healthy. He had been declared dead in 1994.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  > So she drives, gets caught driving or speeding. Who are they then going to charge? A Jane Doe, who is also refusing to identify herself, by falsely giving the name of a dead person.

Cyykratahk 5y ago

I don't understand why the author leaves many words and phrases untranslated. They have translated everything else, but why leave "carte d’identité" or "grande école"? Why say "mairie (town hall)" instead of just saying town hall? These are not loan words that exist in English, and the untranslated words themselves did not seem essential to the story. I've seen a similar issue with Anime fansubs where the translator deems certain words to be untranslatable, and then adds an entire extra sentence of definition on screen upon the first usage.

kwhitefoot 5y ago
The entire story is set in France. Perhaps they don't add anything for you but for me they give the story a more French flavour. And anyway town hall is not an precise translation for mairie. In my home town in the south of England a more correct equivalent would be civic offices. Also in the UK reporting a death is done online these days, definitely not at the town hall. Actually I don't know for sure how these things are done in France but that they are done differently seems certain.
- Igelau 5y ago
  US reader checking in. If they'd translated it as "town hall" I'd assume they were talking about a dreadful televised political rally.
ericd 5y ago
Maybe because "grande école" literally means "big school", but it's essentially a proper noun in French, similar to their version of "Ivy League"? Not sure why for the others you mention, except that they're very specific concepts in France as well, which don't really have very good analogues in the US. Or maybe they just like the sound of the French word and want to sound more sophisticated.
Aerroon 5y ago
Perhaps these are specific names? I could call the US 'Congress' as 'Parliament', but 'Congress' is probably the better choice. >I've seen a similar issue with Anime fansubs where the translator deems certain words to be untranslatable, Yes, as it should be. This is why official translations suck and fansubs are superior works.

zzzpaz 5y ago

Reminds me of The Late Mattia Pascal romance

krakov 5y ago

And yet it is possible to fix given an agreed-upon validator on being alive /being trustable (the french goverment), assuming she still lives by then. In our decentralized future[1] this kind of error will be impossible to rectify, as long as someone believes you are dead or just untrustable. 1. Companies like https://www.identiq.com/ https://www.identiq.com/ (they are far from only ones)

racnid 5y ago
Schemes like that only work if you participate. Even in America we have people that refuse to participate in the birth certificate and social security scheme for better or for (mostly) worse.

FpUser 5y ago

I think she should be right to apply to European Human Rights (or whatever it is called) court. May be this will shame those pathetic scumbags enough.

skissane 5y ago
The European Court of Human Rights can take years to reach a decision. It has a case backlog of over 60,000 cases. It has only 47 judges. That's over 1000 pending cases per a judge.
- FpUser 5y ago
  Ouch. Then what's the recourse? She is being denied basic human rights. Maybe the simple fact of applying and trying to make it to a publication/social media will make someone move their sorry ass? I live in Canada and we have our own stories of people becoming non persons (stateless). It is horrible that those take years and decades to resolve. It is beyond my understanding how we can claim being civilized countries and still allow crime like this to take place and have no special laws to fix such gross fuck-ups promptly.
  - skissane 5y ago
    In the long-term the solution is reform of the European Convention on Human Rights. National courts should enforce human rights. The European Court should essentially be an appellate court only, which hears appeals from the national courts. They've been slowly working towards that goal. Protocol 16, which allows national courts to request advisory opinions from the ECHR, is a step towards that. But it is a difficult journey because some member states don't want to see the ECHR become more effective.
    - FpUser 5y ago
      I know a short term solution. Here is the local Canadian example. I forgot the exact details as I read it long time ago. The basic idea was that that the government scammed a man of his money and then was taking their time (years of course) to return. Somehow this man managed to convince the court so the police just came to a government office in Montreal and shut it down threatening to confiscate all the property. Suddenly the whole thing got resolved in few days. Basically the idea is that in cases like this the government must be made hurting and there are plenty of ways to make them really hurting without doing anything extreme. Just suspend the salary of the whole office and see how their attention span suddenly change. And whoever voted in laws allowing such a gross fuck ups - fine them for negligence when introducing laws without safety measures built in, or give them all inclusive accommodation in Club Fed. I hear a lot of blubbering here advocating people to be jailed for not following proper security with infrastructure software. Well I think the cases like the one mentioned should be a higher priority.

pcrh 5y ago

This seems to be a clear case of fraud by whoever had her declared dead. As well as earlier incompetence by whoever handled the transfer of Mme H's employment records. Further, Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law." She needs a better lawyer....

sascha_sl 5y ago
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.
- pcrh 5y ago
  Why would she not be able to sue for recognition as a living person?
  - sascha_sl 5y ago
    She had trouble even getting a lawyer to take her as a client. People that don't exist can probably not file lawsuits either.
    - pcrh 5y ago
      >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.
  - shakna 5y ago
    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.

vfclists 5y ago

The legal system is an inherently corrupt system which deals with human beings as what is called a "legal fiction". Live humans are seen by the legal system as entities which make the "legal fiction" profitable to interact with.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Igelau 5y ago
Indeed, this doesn't seem to be anything remotely resembling Justice. It is more like a legal system churning with no idea what principles it is supposed to uphold.

hanche 5y ago

This is apparently a common problem in India. There is even an “Association of dead people”. https://www.improbable.com/2020/12/09/update-on-film-about-founder-of-the-association-of-dead-people/ https://www.improbable.com/2020/12/09/update-on-film-about-f... Update: That is actually mentioned in the article. I had only skimmed it, and missed that somehow. Oops.

xaedes 5y ago

This reminds me of "The Machine Fired Me - No human could do a thing about it!" [1], where a guy got fired by some bug in the system and no one could stop or reverse it. It was posted on HN [2] three years agos. [1] https://idiallo.com/blog/when-a-machine-fired-me https://idiallo.com/blog/when-a-machine-fired-me [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17350645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17350645

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

norvvryo 5y ago

This reminds me of the "I Will Kill You & Birth You" DEFCON presentation by Chris Rock. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs

KirillPanov 5y ago
Holy poop that video is hilarious. And great. Summary to convince you the link is clickworthy: Basically death certificates are the "identity system" version of free(). They're how identities (which are valuable) become no longer valid. He shows how to hack this, which is much easier than the malloc() side since adult death certificates are valid immediately whereas adult birth certificates need to be aged (at least) 18 years. It is stupidly easy to get certified as one of the roles (coroner, funeral director, etc) that are allowed to file death reports, which nowadays are just text boxes and clicking on a webpage. This results in a death certificate listing whatever the attacker desires. In particular, they get to declare the next of kin. These declarations fail to be validated shockingly often. End results are (a) life insurance fraud (b) probate fraud and (c) pretty vicious revenge served cold, since getting declared dead causes a ton of huge problems for the target but not for a while (e.g. when passports come up for renewal). His delivery is also awesome, a bunch of really funny deadpan jokes. Best quote: slide title "reasons for killing someone". Last bullet point "Kill your opposing lawyer, the judge, or IRS auditor to slow them down."

ezoe 5y ago

Keeping it legally dead is absurd. What if she commit a crime? "Your honor. She has alibi. She was dead when it happened."

mikem170 5y ago

This is a big problem with large bureaucracies. They can be inhumane. It's not good that we are forced more and more as individuals to be subservient to them.

petre 5y ago
One could move to another bureaucracy and maybe apply for residency? At least in the Schengen area a person could freely move without showing documents, although covid made that more difficult as well.
- arp242 5y ago
  I'm not sure how that would help; you're still going to have to show your ID to get stuff with the government done in whatever Schengen country you are. You may be able to get away with some things before your ID and passport expire, but after that you're screwed (and from the looks of things, her ID and passport already expired).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Causality1 5y ago

I wonder, if the law refuses to admit you exist, can it prosecute you for a crime?

x4e 5y ago
Yes, the same way the law can prosecute you if you refuse to identify yourself

JimTheMan 5y ago

This story is missing the key detail on who/how/what the process was for declaring her dead. The journalist needed to go the extra step here and didn't.

Tijdreiziger 5y ago
No, it's in the article: > Later, Pouchain’s lawyer, Sylvain Cormier, tells me the solicitor’s letter informing Pouchain the industrial tribunal case was being dropped was probably a phoney pause, while Mme H’s lawyer drew breath to relaunch the case. Sometime afterwards, the case returned to court – where it was said that Pouchain had died and that her “heirs” would be asked to settle. “This should not have happened,” Cormier says. > [...] > “When Mme Pouchain first told me her story, I found it hard to believe,” says Cormier. “I said, ‘It’s just not possible.’ But I read the files and it is – everything she told me was unbelievable but perfectly true. It appears there was no certificate of death, it was just taken on someone’s word. Nobody checked.”
toss1 5y ago
um, about the 8th paragraph: "The letter informed her that a lawyer in a court case relating to her cleaning business had told the court that she had died, aged 53, in February 2016. Somehow, this unverified claim – there was no official death certificate, how could there be? – was allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged." Then further down: "“It was a trap, an ambush. She couldn’t win the proceedings while I was alive, so she had me declared dead,”" It appears that the woman (or attorney) suing her for some employment error claimed she was dead to be able to get an advantage in their lawsuit, and to be able to go after her "heirs".

theli0nheart 5y ago

I wonder, who are they actually fining if she’s dead? Does she have immunity from pretty much anything that would be illegal?

nathcd 5y ago
The story says the fines fell to her heirs - her husband and son. It says their bank accounts were frozen and the bailiffs took her husband's car to settle part of the fine.
- theli0nheart 5y ago
  My god, what a horrible transgression of human rights. Someone should answer for these crimes. Insanity.

crossroadsguy 5y ago

This is not an impossible situation due to legalities. This is an impossible situation due to judges, ministers, officials etc unwilling to fix it! It’s just a mix of malice, apathy, incompetence. Ministers and highly placed officials or even heads of the state have stepped in for lesser inconveniences. A person is in front of you - literally living and breathing - what the f else do you need to establish that person is alive!

tharkun__ 5y ago
They wouldn't deny that _a_ person is alive. They need more to establish the fact that this is actually the person they claim to be. This is way different for the bank teller that's known her for 30 years. They know who's standing in front of them (presumably). Way different for someone that's never met this person. The bar is higher. These guys would would want more than just the one bank teller to affidavit that this actually is the person that all records show is actually deceased. Depending on country and their bureaucracy (she does seem to be in France, so ...) this could be quite hard.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  It doesn't seem like it should be that hard. We do it routinely. My kids have passports, and what did they have to prove they were alive and who I claimed them to be? Their birth certificate, and a sworn statement by me. It should be fairly simple to get an equivalent. A sworn statement by her husband, perhaps. Her mother, if still alive. Or heck, by now there might be biological records that can be matched up (e.g. dental). This should be a fairly easy procedural fix.
  - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
    Well, consider: someone who is documented as dead appears with a birth certificate. Do you a) assume that this person is the (presumably) deceased person, or b) assume that a living person is trying to steal a deceased person's identity? The problem is that we're really poorly equipped to handle problems of identity. It's hard to prove that you are you, absent documentation. Documentation usually issued by a government, or by a private agency on behalf of a government. And if that government thinks you're dead, well, all that documentation is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on. Short of, say, a dental, medical or DNA match, then yeah, this is a really hard procedural fix.

mabbo 5y ago

I wonder: if the government refuses to acknowledge a citizen is a living person, with the rights endowed to all living citizens, can they prosecute or imprison such a person? In Mdm Pouchain's shoes, I would likely attempt to commit some minor crime. When brought before the court, I would argue: you cannot punish a dead person. So you must either legally declare me alive so we can continue, or let me go. And if they choose the latter option, the logical next step is escalation of the crimes. Damn, this would be a really fun novel

gota 5y ago
They do mention police threathened to arrest her for "driving while dead". I don't put it beyond bureaucracy to imprison a "corpse" just because it's more convenient I did imagine something along those lines while reading, though. She'd made a badass invincible assassin for hire
kbenson 5y ago
I'm pretty sure they can prosecute John/Jane Does, so I don't think they'll have any problem saying she's not who she says she is, because that person is dead, but she is someone, even if they don't know who.
selestify 5y ago
Or... because you no longer exist as a legal entity, everyone has free reign to hurt you in any way they please without legal repercussions
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  This is actually the original definition of an outlaw. You were outside of the law, and no longer under its protections.
caseysoftware 5y ago
More likely, she would be the French equivalent of a "Jane Doe" or someone else who they could not prove their identity. The more questionable/compelling scenario would be if she had some sort of contract in her name - loan, credit card, lease, whatever - and whether it could be enforced. At that point, the plaintiff would have to prove that a) the contract was valid and b) it was with her. Of course, since she doesn't have any form of ID, whatever notarization-equivalent wouldn't be possible. Or maybe, that's the loophole? Sign a contract with her for some small sum. She breaches the contract. Now sue her to prove her status and identity? My God, what a mess.

utterboredom 5y ago

Since she has children, couldn’t they verify maternity through DNA?

julienreszka 5y ago
DNA tests are known to be unreliable

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Proven 5y ago

This is what happens in a system in which citizens depend on the government. Today it's by mistake, tomorrow based in social credit.

slowwwclap 5y ago

This also happened to me in the US. IRS flagged me as deceased. Institutions acted on it. Closed accounts. Condolence letters. Clerical error at local office it was deemed. No culprit. No repair action. Took 2 years of bonkers discussions with copious notes and pain on a biweekly follow-up basis to resolve. You are the only one who can fix your problems with a spaghetti mess like this. You must lead it to the finish line.

julienreszka 5y ago

Sounds like bullshit, I have a very hard time believing this story is true.

andreskytt 5y ago

That is the price to pay if you do not want to implement a comprehensive resident database with unique identifiers. Which UK refuses to do. It’s a choice I do not get (it demonstrably does not lead to a surveillance state and does not stop fraudulent profiling of people) but it’s theirs to make. It comes with consequences, though.

hrbf 5y ago

This has more to do with bureaucratic unwillingness to admit to mistakes than anything else. This is what you get when everyone in the decision chain is just doing what they are “supposed to do”, without giving it a second thought. According to the article, it’s pretty clear that no death certificate was ever filed, which appears to be a requirement in France. So there’s even a formal error that should void the procedure that followed. This readily demonstrates the unwillingness and compartmentalization at play here. I’m in a similar but different situation due to fictional health insurance costs. In Germany, public health insurance cost is calculated based on your income, with a hard cap at the top. I’ve had very little to no income for a couple of years. Due to a procedural error, I was charged the maximum amount. I’m fighting this for 9 years now and have to deal with constant harassment and ballooning debt north of 35k EUR, most of which is entirely invented but is collected on with the full force of law enforcement. Any attempt to find an agreeable solution failed. It’s obvious to anyone looking at the facts that money is wanted that never existed in the first place. A dozen employees of the insurance even admitted to that fact. Still, they won’t change the order because they feel they can’t. No one wants to be in the position to explain an auditor why 30k+ of outstanding payments were dropped. It’s as simple as that. My life has been hell at times due to that. The drones don’t care. They just want to do what is expected of them. It doesn’t matter if it destroys lives. It appears that the only way out now is to declare bankruptcy. Which appears to be fine with them. They end up getting nothing at all, not even the clearly owed amounts, but that’s fine because it’s “procedurally correct” and no one may end up in the hot seat. Except me of course.

Flimm 5y ago
That's awful. :(