Legislation on China's civil code has formally begun. Through the code, China hopes to establish a country under the rule of law with better protection for civil rights.

During the top legislature's bi-monthly session last week, senior lawmakers reviewed the civil code's draft general rules, which were submitted for a first reading.

This week's review marked the formal beginning of the legislative process for the civil code, which is a collection of laws designed to cover private law.

According to the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, there are two steps needed to codify the laws. The first is to legislate the general rules, and the second is to integrate separate existing civil laws into a code, which is expected to be enacted in 2020.

It is important for China to legislate the civil code as part of the country's socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics, said Yin Zhongqing, a member of the NPC Standing Committee, when deliberating the draft in a group discussion.

In 2011, China announced that a "socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics" had been established on schedule, covering every area of economic, political, cultural, social and ecological development.

China aims to make the code as historic as its predecessors, the Napoleonic civil code and German civil code.

Unlike the common law systems in the United States and Britain, which have a doctrine of judicial precedent, civil law legal systems are based on codified core principles. Civil codes in civil law systems are considered key indicators in judging the quality of legal systems.

In 1952, Chinese jurists began drafting the civil code, but stopped due to political turmoil. And there was no condition for a civil code at that time, as civil law was not compatible with the planned economy of the era.

In the 1980s, Chinese jurists and lawmakers integrated a number of civil laws and enacted a simple General Principles of the Civil Law.

Rather than compiling a civil code, China has enacted a series of separate civil laws in the past decades, such as the Property Law, the Tort Liability Law and the Law of the Application of Law for Foreign-related Civil Relations.

At the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October 2014, the CPC vowed to build a socialist country with rule of law and to strengthen legislation work, especially the codification of civil laws.

Civil rights

Jurists and lawmakers hope the civil code can better protect civil rights and embody the core values of the Chinese nation.

Protecting civil rights is the core of civil law. The draft general rules stipulate that personal liberties and human dignity are protected by the law. The draft also stipulates that natural persons enjoy basic rights to life, health, name, reputation, and privacy, among others.

"Napoleon once said his glory lay not in his military achievements, but the civil code that would rule after his death. Why is the civil code important? Because the Constitution sets limits for public power, while the civil code upholds private rights," said Qiao Xiaoyang, an NPC Standing Committee member and head of the NPC Law Committee.

For ordinary people, the civil code is like an announcement or guarantee letter of their rights, added Qiao.

Xu Xianming, deputy head of the NPC Law Committee and a jurist, said civil law is a symbol of a country with real rule of law, and China's civil code must abide by some basic principles of private law.

Civil codes originated from ancient Roman law. In modern times, there have been two historic civil codes: the French Napoleonic Code in 1804, and the German Civil Code.

The separation of public and private law originated in Roman law.

Civil laws are private laws. Civil laws protect private matters from interference from public powers — a key principle of rule of law. This is the common principle from Roman law, and China must abide by it, according to Xu.