China's key legislative body is expected to come up with a
preliminary draft of the nation's first civil code this summer.
The code is scheduled to be presented to the Standing Committee of
the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC) for a first reading in
December after passing key tests.
It
was revealed by Wang Shengming, director of the Civil Legislation
Office with the Legal Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing
Committee, in an exclusive interview with China Daily.
The civil code offers basic regulations on almost every activity
that a corporation may take such as trade, leasing, transportation,
storage, fund-raising, settlement and the development of new
products.
It
also offers guidelines for any individual on food, clothing,
shelter and transportation - basic necessities of life and
recreation, marriage and family, among other daily activities.
"It is a critical piece of legislation to safeguard the rights of
individuals and corporations and an indispensable basic law to
regulate the market economy," Wang said.
He
said the codification and popularization of the civil code are
urgently needed and will have an immense impact on the country's
transformation from a planned economy to a market economy and to
the rule of law.
"I
am confident of reaching this goal although it is an arduous task
considering the limited time we have and taking the far-ranging
spectrum of the civil code into consideration," Wang said.
"The development and deepening of reform and opening-up have laid
the most solid social groundwork for the civil code," Wang
said.
He
was echoed by Wang Liming, a civil law professor with Renmin University of
China, who said the increasing awareness of the Chinese people
of their individual rights by law has added urgency to the
establishment of a civil code.
China stipulated in 1992 that the goal of its economic reform was
to build a socialist market economy.
The nation's entry to the World Trade Organization, which took
effect in December, means that its macro-adjustment and control of
economy and trade will have to be in tune with international rules
which reflect civil rules in many ways, Wang Shengming said.
Wang Liming said loopholes in current civil laws, which pose great
challenges for judges, also call for an early emergence of a civil
code, a legal yardstick for judging contractual and tortuous
disputes.
He
said the lack of a clear definition of privacy and basic
regulations on environmental infringement, traffic accidents and
medical incidents often put the judges in an embarrassing
situation.
Chinese courts handled 5,076,694 civil cases last year - almost
seven times as many criminal cases - according to figures of the
Supreme People's Court.
Li
Peng, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, has paid great
attention to the codification and vowed to complete a basic legal
system within his five-year tenure.
Both Wang Shengming and Wang Liming agreed it is impossible to
establish a basic legal system that suits the needs of the market
economy without a civil code.
"The huge volume of current civil legislation which has been tested
for years give a sound legislative foundation for us to complete
the task in time," Wang Shengming said.
In
the past two decades, China has developed a bulk of separate civil
legislation including the General Principles of Civil Law in 1986,
which is still acting as a basic civil law in the nation today.
Wang Shengming's commission has worked out a draft property law, an
important part of the civil code.
He
said the rapid progress in academic study of foreign civil
legislation has also offered a strong theoretical preparation for
China's own civil code.
Wang Shengming's office started codifying the civil code in
January.
They have also delegated the task of drafting the legal experts'
version of the legislation, a valuable reference for legislative
officials, to six top-notch civil law scholars who are expected to
hand in their drafts at the end of this month.
It
is estimated that the future civil code will comprise around 1,500
to 2,000 articles, the most voluminous legislation in the nation so
far, according to Liang Huixing, a civil law researcher with the
Institute of Law under the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences.
He
estimated that it may need three to four years for the code to win
final approval.
Basic laws such as the civil code have to be voted for by the full
session of the NPC which gathers once a year after deliberations by
the NPC Standing Committee, according to China's Legislative
Procedure Law.
(China
Daily March 15, 2002)