Draft Suggestions of Chinese Civil Code Scholars and Legislative Reasons (Personality Rights Volume, Marriage and Family Volume, Inheritance Volume)

Author: Wang Liming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: The system of the Civil Code refers to the logical arrangement of civil rules or legal provisions that regulate personal and property relationships between equal subjects, which have an inherent organic connection, when adopting a codified form. In short, it is the logical system that organically combines the various rules of civil law into the Civil Code. With the compilation of the Civil Code project already underway in our country, the primary issue facing legislators is how to construct the system of the Civil Code. As the highest form of codified law, the Civil Code pursues a high degree of systematicity and rigorous logic. It can be said that the establishment of the Civil Code system holds decisive significance for the drafting of the Civil Code. Therefore, exploring the system of the Civil Code is determined by its inherent attributes. Regarding the issue of how to construct the system of the Chinese Civil Code, there has been extensive and lively debate among civil law scholars. We believe that the system of the Chinese Civil Code should consist of the General Principles of Civil Law, Personality Rights Law, Family Law, Inheritance Law, Property Law, General Principles of Debt, Contract Law, General Provisions of Intellectual Property Law, and Tort Law. Below, we will discuss several controversial issues in the construction of the Civil Code system one by one.
"The Scholarly Proposal for the Chinese Civil Code and Legislative Reasons" provides an in-depth explanation and insightful interpretation of the Scholarly Proposal for the Chinese Civil Code drafted by Professor Wang Liming. It consists of five volumes, covering the entire content of the eight books of the proposal, including the General Principles Book, the Personality Rights Book, the Marriage and Family Book, the Inheritance Book, the Property Book, the General Principles of Debt Book, the Contract Book, and the Tort Law Book. The highlights of this set are:
- Novel and Complete System: The proposal is divided into books, chapters, and sections based on the content of the provisions, with legislative reasons and reference legislative examples provided under each provision, resulting in a relatively complete and comprehensive overall structure and format.
- Authoritative and Thorough Content: The provisions were drafted by experienced civil law scholars, summarizing the profound insights and research of many experts. The legislative reasons section elaborates on the intrinsic meaning of the provisions, explains relevant civil law principles, analyzes theoretical debates, and summarizes the origins and motivations behind the drafting of the provisions. The reference legislative examples section collects legislative examples from both domestic and foreign contexts, providing valuable materials for comparing domestic and foreign legislation and understanding the content of the provisions.
This set combines authoritative insights, cutting-edge theories, detailed materials, and a complete system, making it of great reference value and significance for the broad legal community engaged in civil legislative research.
Book II: Personality Rights
[Book Explanation] The personality rights system is a legal system that confirms and protects personality interests such as life, health, reputation, portrait, and privacy. As a newly formed and developed civil legal system since the early 20th century, especially after World War II, the personality rights system does not occupy a particularly important position in traditional civil law system codes. However, with more than a century of socio-economic and cultural development, the significance of personality rights has become increasingly prominent, and their types and specific contents have been greatly enriched. In the process of drafting the Civil Code in our country, the independent inclusion of personality rights as a separate book will be an innovation in our civil law toward the 21st century and an indispensable measure for the Chinese Civil Code to become a milestone in the new century.
### I. Personality Rights Should Be Independent in the Civil Code
In the current context of drafting the Civil Code in our country, how to correctly understand the position of personality rights in the Civil Code has sparked significant debate among scholars. Currently, there are mainly two views: advocating for the independent inclusion of personality rights as a separate book and opposing it. The reasons of the scholars opposing the independent inclusion of personality rights mainly include three points:
1. Our country belongs to the civil law system, yet in the civil law system, especially in the German Civil Code, the personality rights system does not hold an independent position.
2. The personality rights system is inseparable from the personality system and should therefore be included in the civil subject system.
3. Personality rights only have significance when they are infringed upon, and thus can be regulated in the Tort Law.
These viewpoints all have a certain degree of rationality, but I believe that personality rights should be independently included as a separate book in the Civil Code. The independent inclusion of personality rights in the Civil Code meets the needs of enriching and developing the system of the Civil Code, satisfies the requirements of safeguarding fundamental human rights in the process of building a socialist market economy and a rule-of-law state in our country, and also aligns with the scientific laws of the development of the Civil Code system.
In today’s 21st century, when humanity has entered the new century, we should draft a Civil Code with Chinese characteristics based on the realities of our country. We should not blindly copy the existing models of foreign Civil Codes but should instead emphasize innovation based on learning and reflection. Civil law is a reflection of socio-economic life in law, and the Civil Code is a summary and embodiment of a country’s way of life. To draft a new Civil Code that reflects the realities of our country and faces the 21st century, we must align its structural organization with the spirit of our time. This means inheriting reasonable traditions while also innovating and developing in line with reality.
Of course, innovation is not a simple slogan, and it cannot be pursued for the sake of novelty. Any innovation must be in line with objective laws and supported by sufficient scientific theory. The independent inclusion of personality rights not only has sufficient theoretical support and significant practical meaning but also, from the perspective of the system structure of the Civil Code, fully aligns with the development laws of the Civil Code system and plays a very important role in enriching and perfecting the system of the Civil Code.
See Wang Liming, "On the Position of the Personality Rights System in the Future Chinese Civil Code," in Legal Research, 2003, Issue 2.
The main manifestations are as follows:
—, the independent inclusion of personality rights aligns with the inherent logic of the Civil Code system structure. Traditional civil law system codes do not have a separate book for personality rights.