The 11th session of the Chinese jurist forum was held in Beijing on August 24 with the theme of “Civil Code compilation: theory, institution and practice”.
Wang Lequan, president of the China Law Society, pointed out that civil code compilation is a landmark event in legal construction as well as a strong driving force in promoting modernization of national and social governance.
Over the past ten years, as our society matured and the economy and society experienced healthy growth, related civil regulations were successively passed. Academic research is now being carried out with a goal of compilation of a comprehensive civil code, Wang said.
In the past 60 years China has introduced legislation to establish a civil code for five times, but the first four attempts stalled. In 2014 the fifth attempt was begun.
The fact that China lacked a civil code doesn’t mean that civil law didn’t exist. From the 1980s, through legislation and revisions to it, there have been a series of civil and commercial laws pertaining to general principles of civil law, contract law, property law, marriage law and estate law which provide a solid foundation for the compilation of a unified civil code.
Concerning the compilation in this new era, Du Wanhua, commissioner of the Supreme People’s Court, proposed to highlight the characteristic features of the times. “Thousands of years of splendid legal achievements in Chinese legal culture should be absorbed into the civil code to reflect the positive results of China’s reform and opening-up,” he said.
Based on the national characteristics, which combine those of agricultural society, industrial society, post-industrial society and an information-based society, Du suggests that we should attach importance to protecting traditional civil rights while exploring new developments in civil and human rights.
According to Du, in response to social concerns, the civil code should protect a natural person’s concrete and general personality rights such as the right to life, right to health, right to personal information and right to name protection even after death. It should also protect the rights of legal persons or other organizations such as the right to exclusive name use.
Another of his proposals is to precisely define rural collective organizations’ legal status and their membership requirements. In China today about 70 percent of the population have a rural Hukou, or permanent resident permit, and are also members of a rural collective organization. Consequently, in a civil code of law, the nature and legal status of rural collective organizations should be detailed.
