Abstract:The Chinese Civil Code possesses a dual legal status as both a codified law and a fundamental law. Its comprehensive scope of norms and systematic structure satisfy the most stringent criteria for codification, while its provisions predominantly embody foundational principles of natural law, rendering it a model for codification. Its legitimacy as a fundamental law primarily lies in regulating the most vital and pervasive social relations, integrating values across societal domains, and constructing the fundamental legal framework for the “state-society” relationship. This dual status determines that the Civil Code serves as both the basic law of private law and the safeguarding law of private law. The former dictates its relationship with special civil laws, while the latter mediates the relationship between private and public law. Special civil laws, characterized as evolving legislation, exhibit prominent policy-oriented attributes and constantly shifting value trade-offs, making them unsuitable for inclusion in the Civil Code. The Civil Code and special civil laws should adhere to the coherence of the legal order to preserve the integrity and unity of private law, while simultaneously guarding against “civil law imperialism”, which erases the distinct features of organizational and sectoral laws. As the safeguarding law of private law, the Civil Code forms a counterbalance to public law, yet the two communicate in areas involving public interests. No general principle of public law supremacy or private law supremacy exists. State actions pursuing public interests through private law instruments should be subject to fundamental rights constraints, and legislators must remain vigilant against using special civil laws as a means for the “escaping of public law into private law.” When administrative authorities create new forms of property rights, they must strictly adhere to the principle of equality.

Keywords: Civil Code; Fundamental Law; Codification; Private Law and Public Law; Special Civil Laws

 

Author:Xie Hongfei, research fellow, Center for Private Law Studies, CASS Institute of Law; professor and doctoral supervisor, the University of CASS;

Source: 5 (2025) Journal of National Prosecutors College