Editor's Introduction

Abstract

China is in the midst of creating a new legal system on Western lines. Like most Western systems outside the Anglo-American world, it is composed of codes—criminal, criminal procedure, civil procedure, etc.1 Unlike the other systems, however, it does not yet have a civil code. Normally the civil code is the basis of a Western legal system. Western law developed out of civil law, and the civil codes are certainly at the center of the two systems that serve as models for most of the world, those of France and Germany. Chinese jurists are perfectly aware of this, and they are apparently in the process of drafting such a code. Several drafts have been seen by Westerners.2 I have translated the fourth draft of 1982.3 As of 1984-85, however, the usual statement that was made to outsiders by Chinese was that there was unlikely to be a complete civil code in the near future.4 Instead, different parts would come out separately. It was pointed out that this had already taken place to a degree. The examples that were given were the Marriage Law and the Economic Contracts Law.