Professor Sun XianzhongRanks First among Most Influential Persons in the Field of the Rule of in China in 2017

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On January 19, 2018, the Blue Book on the Rule of Law in China in 2017,jointly compiled and published by China Procuratorate Daily and Law Totem, was formally launched in Beijing. The book consists of twelve chapters: hot words; persons; laws; democracy; advocacy of an honest government; ant-corruption; the Internet; public interest litigation; supervision by public opinions; finance; culture; and mass media, which demonstrate from different perspectives the advancements of the rule of law in China in 2017.In the Chapter on Persons, Professor Sun Xianzhong, a research fellow at CASS Law Institute and Vice Chairman of the Civil Law Research Committee of China Law Society, ranks first among the persons who had the greatest influence on the development of the rule of law in China in 2017. He was chosen for his contributions to the formulation and adoption of the General Provisions of the Chinese Civil Law.

On March 15, 2017, the General Provisions of the Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China was adopted at the Fifth Session of the Twelfth National People’s Congress (NPC), signifying the completion of the first step of the codification of the civil law in China. Professor Sun Xianzhong had played an important role in this process.Since he was elected a deputy to the Twelfth National People’s Congressin 2013,Professor Sun has submitted proposals on the codification of the civil law in China to the NPC for four consecutive years. In the beginning, he proposed that China revise the General Principles of the Civil Law and take it as the General Provisions of the Civil Code and integrate various civil law systems to form the Civil Code”; later he submitted concrete proposals on the stylistic rules and layout of the General Provisions of the Civil Law in the Chinese Civil Code; even expressed his views on specific issues relating to need for a chapter on “objects” in the civil code and the concrete plan for the compilation of this chapter.With the concerted efforts made by Professor Sun and other scholars, the codification of the civil in China has been accelerated. As a recent article in the newspaper Henan Daily pointed out, with footsteps of the Civil Code drawing nearer and nearer, Professor Sun does not feel relax at all: “the main framework of the code has already been determined, but more deliberations need to be carried out on some details.”