The Civil Code Unveiled

Civil law is a comprehensive set of legal norms that govern the personal and property relationships among equal parties, including natural persons, legal entities, and unincorporated organizations. The academic discipline that focuses on civil law is known as civil jurisprudence.

On May 28, 2020, China's first Civil Code was promulgated, serving as the fundamental law for regulating civil and commercial legal relationships. Often referred to as an encyclopedia of social life, it permeates every aspect of economic and social activities. Engels noted that "civil law translates economic relations directly into legal principles, embodying the economic conditions of society in legal form." President Xi Jinping emphasized that "the Civil Code regulates the personal and property relationships among natural persons, legal entities, and other civil subjects. These are the most common and ordinary social and economic relationships in society, closely intertwined with people's daily lives and all sectors of the economy."

In essence, the Civil Code touches upon every aspect of people's lives, from their basic needs to significant life events. It encompasses various areas such as property rights, creditor's rights, personality rights, marital and family rights (including kinship rights), inheritance rights, and provisions for the protection of these rights through liability for infringements. This comprehensive system provides a cradle-to-grave safeguard for individuals and entities.

China's civil legal system follows the tradition of integrating civil and commercial laws. Apart from the Civil Code, there are over 200 individual statutes, many of which pertain to civil matters. Examples include copyright law, trademark law, patent law, adoption law, product quality law, land management law, urban real estate management law, and special commercial laws such as company law, insurance law, and bill law. Collectively, these laws form a cohesive system under the umbrella of the Civil Code, with the latter being the pinnacle of civil legislation.

Civil law primarily addresses two types of relationships:

1.Personal Relationships: These do not involve direct financial content but are based on personal attributes. They encompass personality rights and status rights. Personality rights arise from the personality of natural persons, legal entities, and unincorporated organizations, including rights to life, body, health, name, reputation, privacy, and marriage autonomy. Status rights are derived from specific statuses or roles, such as parental rights, spousal rights, and kinship rights. These rights are inherent and cannot be taken away without due legal process.

2.Property Relationships: These are formed during the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and have economic implications. Property relationships entail property rights and obligations, with the subject matter being property itself. They include both proprietary relationships (such as ownership, usufructuary rights, and security interests) and creditor-debtor relationships (such as contractual debts, tortious liabilities, quasi-contractual debts, and unjust enrichment).

Marx discussed the formation of commodity relationships, emphasizing that commodities cannot enter the market or exchange themselves. Therefore, the owners or custodians of commodities must interact and agree on the terms of exchange. For commodity relationships to form, three conditions must be met: independent custodians or owners of commodities, ownership rights over the commodities, and mutual agreement between the parties involved.

The Civil Code regulates both the ownership and transfer of property. Ownership relationships refer to the social interactions arising from the possession, use, income generation, and disposal of property by its owner and other right holders. Transfer relationships concern the exchanges of property. Ownership often precedes transfer, while transfer serves as a means to realize ownership.

As a branch of private law, civil law emphasizes freedom of contract, allowing parties to establish, modify, or terminate legal relationships according to their will. However, this autonomy is subject to legal constraints and must not violate mandatory legal provisions or public morals.