The PRC Civil Code For Common Lawyers – A General Introduction

What is a civil code

A civil code is a large piece of organized legislation that seeks to provide an overall legal framework on private law matters such as family, successions, property, contracts and tort. For modern common lawyers, the main challenge of a civil code is its brevity. Rules are brief, meant to applied to a wide generality of cases, and use concepts that are often unfamiliar. The history and characteristics of the civil law imply that textbooks and legal literature have a far greater importance than in the common law system as academic writing is regarded as part of the legislative process and of the interpretation of statues. A number of definitions or explanations of legal concepts may be found in academic textbooks rather than in legislation or in decided cases. This is particularly true for laws of long traditions and broad application such as a civil code. For this reason, some of the main Chinese legal authors have been listed in this article. I