Lily Home, a public welfare program serving women's rights, was recently founded in Shanghai Jiading Industrial Zone in 2013. (Photo/Provided to chinadaily.com.cn)
3. Seniors with limited capacity to get guardians
When minors, persons in a vegetative state, people with mental obstacles and patients with Alzehimer's disease want to join social activities, or if their interests need to be protected, who will decide? The answer is their guardians.
The current civil laws only provide that the guardianship covers minors and mentally ill people. The draft has extended help along the lines of those with mental obstacles or who totally or partially lose their cognitive abilities.
Draft: Adults who are unable to account for their own conducts shall have no capacity for civil conducts.
Interpretation: The change has enlarged the guardianship's application scope, which will give full play to the function of the guardianship system, said Li Shigang, an associate law professor in Fudan University.
Zhang Wei, a lawyer at Beijing Zhi Zhi Law Firm, said the extension of guardianship would effectively protect the elderly's personal and property rights.
"Compared with minors, adults have more rights that are easier to damage. That is why it is important and necessary to write it into the draft," Zhang said.
4. Legal persons to be separated into two
Currently, China's laws generally separate legal persons into enterprises, government and judicial organs, public institutions and social groups. But after social development, more forms of social organizations appear, such as foundations, private non-enterprise units and social service organizations.
Draft: A for-profit legal person is one set on making profits and distributing the profit to its shareholders or other investors. A non-profit legal person is one set on public welfare or other non-profit purposes. A non-profit legal person cannot distribute interests to its founders and members.
Interpretation: It is a progress in classifying legal persons, which is suitable for the country's conditions, covering all sorts of social organizations, said Li Yongjun, a professor of China University of Political Science and Law and a participant in drafting the general rules.
5. Non-legal person organizations
The townsmen associations, branches of banks and TV programs could not be identified as natural persons, and they are not qualified as legal persons, but they still carry out civil activities in their names.
Draft: Non-legal organizations are those which do not have a legal personality but can carry out civil activities in their names under the law. The draft also names some organizations, such as individual proprietorship enterprises and partnership enterprises and the branches of for-profit and non-profit legal persons.
Interpretation: Li said a non-legal organization was between the natural person and legal person, and it could be considered as the collection of people, having corresponding capacity for civil rights and civil conduct. The draft stipulates major aspects of the organizations, such as the registration, establishment, representatives, venues and dissolution. Because there are different kinds of non-legal person organizations, the draft does not specify too many details.
