Draft of the Civil Code of China with Explanatory Notes. Book on Torts, Book on Inheritance

Author: Liang Huixing, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: Tort law is essentially a remedial law, serving as a civil remedy when people's legitimate rights and interests are infringed upon. Therefore, it falls under mandatory provisions, and parties are not allowed to agree to exclude its application. However, the rights and obligations arising from torts are fundamentally the same as those arising from contracts, hence both belong to the law of claims, termed "torts as debts." The difference between tort debts and contractual debts lies in the former being statutory debts while the latter are optional debts. Nevertheless, both share the same nature of rights, being relative and claim rights, with common essence and effects. Their transfer, modification, satisfaction, extinction, as well as divisible and indivisible claims, generic and specific claims, elective claims, separate claims, and joint claims, all follow the same rules, i.e., the general principles of claims. Thus, most legislative examples include the rules of torts in the general principles of claims section of the Civil Code. The inheritance law stipulates the basic rules for the transfer of property after a natural person's death, and inheritance rights are property rights based on blood or kinship relationships. As an important part of the Civil Code, inheritance law should naturally be included as a section of the Civil Code.