Civil and Commercial Litigation and Maritime Law Essentials and Reference Guidance--Legal Professionals Advanced Assistant Book Series

Author: Tang Qingyang, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-01-01
Features:
A senior judge of the Supreme People's Court once said that in a civil law country like China, the process of judges making judgments is essentially one of finding legal grounds and applying legal reasoning to interpret the law. Many legal experts deeply agree with this view. In fact, whether it is judges or other legal professionals, when encountering specific legal issues, the primary tasks they need to focus on are: on one hand, determining the nature and category of the issue in legal theory; on the other hand, finding relevant legal grounds and, based on this, applying legal reasoning to apply the law and resolve the issue. In this sense, the current legal textbooks and theoretical works on law are not closely aligned with the actual needs of legal professionals. Other legal practice-related books also face similar issues—either they provide simple interpretations of legal provisions or simply compile and list laws and regulations, failing to fully meet the deep-seated needs of legal professionals. Based on this understanding, we held two expert workshops attended by senior judges and lawyers, fully understanding the actual needs of legal professionals. We then organized nearly 100 legal experts into 18 expert groups, categorized by different legal disciplines, and spent two years writing this series, "Advanced Legal Assistants for Legal Professionals."
Considering factors such as the breadth of coverage and key and difficult issues in judicial practice, the first batch of this series focuses on 18 commonly used legal disciplines, each written as a separate book. The series is structured into two parts for each legal discipline: "Essentials" and "Basis Guidance."
The "Essentials" section includes questions (main purposes of provisions) set by current legal documents and other difficult issues that may arise in judicial practice, summarized and summarized. On the surface, these questions may not seem as targeted as Q&A or case-based questions, and some may even appear as dry terms. However, these questions are actually the "points" of each legal discipline, and any issue in practice can be categorized under these "points." The content of the questions is also not written as lengthy academic monographs or papers, but in the form of expert opinions, concisely explaining legal principles and pointing out issues to be noted in judicial practice.
The "Basis Guidance" section lists as comprehensively as possible the specific legal grounds related to the questions. In our country, legal grounds are multi-layered, including laws formulated by the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee, administrative regulations, departmental rules, and normative documents passed by the State Council and its departments, as well as judicial interpretations issued by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. Among these grounds, laws naturally have the highest authority. However, some legal provisions are relatively general, and the understanding and handling of many specific issues in practice still require supplementation by relevant grounds issued by administrative and judicial departments. Therefore, the "Basis Guidance" section clearly lists the names, publication dates, and issuing departments of all the above grounds and appends the specific provisions applicable to each essential question. (For some larger questions that require referencing the full text of the basis or involve uncommon specialized issues, to save space, we have only noted the names, publication dates, and issuing departments of the grounds, omitting the specific provisions. Readers can find them in the specific questions later or in other legal compendiums.)
With the clear framework of the "Essentials" questions, the authoritative opinions of experts on legal principles, and the detailed and specific legal grounds, the series forms a complete and coherent structure for each legal discipline. We believe that this innovative format for legal books can largely meet the actual needs of legal professionals and will become their convenient and practical reference.
It should be noted that due to the wide range of legal disciplines covered by this series, the workload of writing was substantial. The authors involved came from judicial practice departments, teaching, and research departments, belonging to different industries and professions. Although we strive for uniformity in the writing format, there are still obvious differences in language style and expression among different books. Additionally, the cut-off date for the materials used in this series is November 2004.