New draft interpreting marriage and family section of Civil Code is disclosed

A new draft document to interpret the marriage and family section of the Civil Code has been disclosed by China's top court on Sunday in order to solicit public opinions.

The Supreme People's Court released the 21-article draft judicial interpretation via its official WeChat account, with disclosure of its e-mail and workplace addresses, adding that the solicitation will end on April 30.

Considering how livestreaming activities have been more popular among the public and have caused some new problems, the draft has made some special stipulations for this regard.

For example, it states that if guardians of a child under the age of 8 turn to a court claiming the underage internet user's behavior of giving rewards to livestreaming hosts is invalid and requests a refund, the court should support the claim.

It also clarifies that if one spouse significantly exceeds the family's usual expenditure level in rewarding livestreaming hosts, causing serious harm to the community property of the couple, Chinese courts will support the other party's request for a lesser or no share of the assets to the reward-giver in a divorce lawsuit.

In addition, if someone hides his or her underage child after divorce, courts will be allowed to support the request of the ex-spouse to stop the behavior, or the application for a personal safety protection order for the child will be enacted, according to the draft.

The top court said that formulating the new judicial interpretation is to help judges accurately apply the country's Civil Code, a fundamental law for regulating civil activities, as well as to strongly protect legitimate rights of women, children, the elderly and disabled people.

It is the first law to be called a code since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, and also a milestone legislation in comprehensively advancing the rule of law and promoting the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics.

The code consists of general provisions, which clarify basic civil rights, duties and principles, and six individual sections on property, contracts, personality rights, marriage and family, inheritance and torts.

The code was passed in 2020 and has been in effect since January 2021.

At the end of 2020, the top court issued seven judicial interpretations related to the code. The latest draft is the second piece for interpreting the section on marriage and family.