A Study On Concurrence Between Invalidation Of Contract And Unjust Enrichment

According to the tradition of the continental law system,the return of property acquired between the parties is regulated by the unjust enrichment system where the contract is invalid.Due to the tortuous process of codification,it is difficult for China to make a complete system arrangement for unjust enrichment.The current law is very thin and cannot meet the practical needs.Under this background,our country has formed a contract invalidation system centering on Article 52 and Article 58 of the Contract Law.The former is the judgment rule of contract invalidation,while the latter is the property relation processing rule arising from invalid contract in case of contract invalidation.The Civil Code is bound to make more systematic provisions on unjust enrichment,but the coexistence of the adjustment rules of the existing contract invalidation system on property relations and the unjust enrichment system will lead to conflicts in the civil law system.From the point of view of the elements of legal rules,the acquisition of property between the parties to an invalid contract meets the constitutive requirements of unjust enrichment.Among the legal consequences of invalid contracts,the claim for property return(discount compensation)is competing with the claim for return of original goods(discount compensation)in general unjust enrichment,which is even completely opposite to the legal effect of illegal cause payment in special unjust enrichment.There are also conflicts between the system of collecting(recovering)illegal income and other legal effects,and the system itself has not adapted to the actual situation.With the enactment of the Civil Code,this issue of concurrence will gradually emerge.Construction contracts for construction projects are closely related to public safety.Therefore,laws,administrative regulations and judicial interpretations have many provisions on the situation of invalid contracts,covering all legal effects of the system of invalid contracts.Therefore,it's an ideal target for the study of concurrence of the two.Although due to the direct stipulation of the contract invalidation system and the weakness of the unjust enrichment system,the direct application of the contract invalidation system to deal with property relations arising from invalid construction contracts is mostly in practice,but there are also cases where the two systems coincide.For this conflict of legal system caused by the expansion of the contract invalidation system,the solution we have given is to give up the existing rules of dealing with property relations in the contract invalidation system,return to judging the validity of the contract only,introduce the cause theory and recognize the illegal cause payment system,and hand over the property return relationship to the illegal cause payment system for adjustment.Since written law cannot avoid the phenomenon of concurrence,the general principle of concurrence should be stipulated.In addition,we should abandon the system of collecting(recovering)illegal income.