Suggestions on Adhering to the Principle of Combining Reality and Science and Actively Promoting the Compilation of the Civil Code

This article consists of a legislative proposal made by the author, as a representative of the National People’s Congress, to the highest legislature body in China at the time when the general provisions of the civil code compilation were completed in mid-2016 and the compilation of the civil code subrules was about to begin. This proposal proposes that compared with the situation where the general provisions of the civil code emphasize the guiding ideology of legislation and the basic principles of civil law, the legislation of each part of the civil code should emphasize the grasping of the needs of China’s actual market economic development and protecting people’s rights. The legislation should adhere to the principle of scientific legislation proposed by the central government and stipulated by the legislative law of our country. In the case of fierce disputes in civil law academic circles on whether to establish an independent personality rights codification in the civil code compilation, this proposal carefully analyzes the focal issues of the dispute and proposes provisions that aim to strengthen the protection of personality rights according to the needs of the protection of people’s rights in China. However, it should not be regulated based on the market development of personality rights and the transfer of personality rights. Because personality rights are the natural rights of natural persons, whether they are the rights of life, health or privacy, they are the embodiment of a natural person’s personality and are the exclusive rights inherent in each natural person. These rights cannot be developed in the market, let alone transferred to others. This is the humanistic basis of personality rights legislation. The proposal also proposes specific and targeted amendments to correct some obvious mistakes in the current laws of our country. To strengthen the protection of personality rights, the compilation of the civil code of our country stipulates an independent personality rights codification. At the same time, according to my suggestion, the systemic creativity of the transfer of personality rights is deleted, which enhances the protection of personality rights and ensures the humanistic nature of personality rights legislation on an ideological basis. At the same time, the compilation of the civil code also adopts the suggestions within this article regarding the amendment of some of the legislation on the validity of contracts.