On The Rules Of Time In Civil Laws

To human beings, time has occupied most significant place in their lives to such extents that time is the logical and historical starting point to establish philosophers'thought. The passing of time causes changes of laws, therefore it brings changes of right. If the rights in reality can be considered as the laws in subjective aspect, then these subjective laws have always been modified by time. However, as objective rights, they seldom change accompanying the change of time. The civil law, centers around rights, is called the law of rights. Time functions throughout the procedure of which from the formation of rights to forfeit of rights. Therefore, the time in the system of rights has become the core of time system in civil law. Due to such co-relationships between rights and time, researches on the time in the civil law should not cut itself off from the systems of rights.The relationship between law and time is so close that it worthwhile to research. Unfortunately, no systematical research on the issue of time is provided in legal theories. That is the reason why the author selects time and rights as her research area. This article, with time as its clue, centers on systems of rights and aims at discussing basic system of time as well as inquiring the relationship between the time and rights. It argues typical systems of rights in the views of time as well as the relationships between time and rights by means of proceeding from the basic theory to the specific system. The discussion can be divided as follows:Chapter 1, namely, time and the timeliness of civil rights, focuses on the basic theory of time and the timeliness characteristic of civil rights. The first section of this chapter is a scientific investigation on time. By laying out the definitions of time in aspects of science and social science, the author not only summarizes the different point of views on the issue of time provided by different philosophers in different periods but points out that those different views result in different impacts on the significance of time in terms of law science. The second section conducts a legal investigation on time. It discusses time in aspect of law as well as the significance of time in law from micro and macro perspectives. Both the passing of time and specific backgrounds of time have strongly impact laws. Therefore, the significance of time in aspect of law includes the significance as tools, norms, validity, governing properties and the significance on procedure. The third section focuses on time in civil law, expounding the characteristics of time as a kind of interest and how to protect such interest. Time, as other interests existed in civil law, is supposed be protect. Since time can not be transformed to a specific right, the protection of time interests is presented in a way of that time is protected as a sort of legal interest. The fourth section attempts to show the time limit characteristic of civil right. The time limit is defined as a kind of form, which shows the objective limits of civil rights. This section is conducted by means of jurisprudence and the economic analysis of law.The topic of Chapter 2 is"time and formation (acquisition) of civil right". Section 1 concerns about formation of right, defining that formation as a process that rights appear. Natural law believes that God entitles rights to human beings while Positivism law regards the rights as common wills that were developed with the progress of society, and were ultimately regulated in statutes. With regard to the formation of civil right, the author proposes that the formation of right is closely related to time development of sense of right, so the formation of rights is deeply influenced by the factor of time. As to those influences, the section analyses them in macro perspective. Section 2 mainly concentrates on the acquisition of rights. The acquisition of rights is primarily an issue concerning about the acquisition of capacities. Moreover, the legal facts of such acquisitions are closely related to the issue of time. In this section, the author investigates the acquisition of rights specifically by researching the system of adverse possession, i.e., the history of the system, the evolution of its function, and the establishment of the period in adverse possession.In Chapter 3, the author discusses the limitation and expansion of civil rights under the dimension of time. The main premise of this chapter is that the law has to re-determine the allocation of interest among different interest entities because of the instant limits of social resources. Thus, some entities'rights are limited while other entities'rights are expanded. The timeliness on the limits of civil rights is discussed in the first section. The process that civil laws develop from self-rooted value to society-rooted value has resulted in the fact that private freedom and private rights are no longer absolute. The limits on civil rights reflect requirements of re-distributing social interests. Time limit is an important sign, which shows that limits on rights. The second section is revolved around the issue of the deadlines of ownership. The development of ownership from being absolute to being relative is an epitome of the history in which the modern civil laws have replaced the civil laws of capitalist era. As to the limits on ownership, the deadline is presented by the fact that multiple rights constitute an ownership and the fact that multiple entities enjoy an ownership. The limits of deadlines on ownership are also shown by when such an ownership is acquired, settled, registered, and inherited. The third section mainly discusses the system of time sharing. The time sharing system, the typical representative of time limits ownership, challenges the traditional theories of ownership. However, it meets the demands of efficiently utilizing properties and demands of economic development. In the third section, the author analyses the system of cooling off period. The cooling off period, a certain period of time given to consumers and empowered consumers to make choices, is an expansion of consumer's rights. The justification of the cooling off period is also analyzed in this section. The fourth section argues the limits of deadline on intellectual property rights, showing that such limits are related to the protection of social interests and such limits meet the rationale required in the economics. It always aims at designing a reasonable system and striking balance among different interests when we talk about such issues as whether the time limits is longer or shorter or what kind of methods are supposed to take in order to set up such limits.Chapter 4 attempts to explain the forfeit of civil rights under the dimension of time. The forfeit of rights because of passing of time is a sign to show the period of existence and maintaining of rights. It is typically demonstrated by the system of limitation period and the system of ausschlussfristen. First section and second section talk about the period of losing right and period of maintaining rights, dividing the forfeit of right into two periods, namely, the period of losing right and period of maintaining rights. The system, of which rights cease to be effective, based on good faith and the fact that there is the loss of reliance interests because the person who has rights does not exercise this right, claims that right loses efficacy in order to protect the counterparty's right and the order of economy. The loss of right typically proved the period, during which right has existed and maintained, including the period, during which the right of formation and the right of claim exist and maintain. The third section concerns about the system of ausschlussfristen. Ausschlussfristen is the period that the right of formation exists and maintains. The passing of ausschlussfristen results in the forfeit of the right of formation. The forth section discusses about the system of limitation period. Limitation period is the period that the right of claim exists and maintains. To a certain extent, the passing of limitation period causes the forfeit of right of claim. Both of them are very important and valuable in civil law.