| Private International Law came into existence several hundred years ago, but still it's not complete enough as compared to domestic laws such as Civil Law. Unfortunately, it's even more under-developed in our country. It is impossible for statute law alone to solve this problem. The operation of case-law is needed here. This thesis tries to prove that it is necessary to introduce case law into the Private International Law of China for the latter's improvement by (1) comparing statute law and case-law and (2) analyzing the particularity of civil relations involving foreign factors. This thesis consists of four parts. Part one summarizes the status quo of Private International Law of China. Part two analyses the defects of statute law and the tendency to merge of the two major legal genealogies, namely the civil law system and the case law system. Part three, on the basis of the characteristics of civil relations involving foreign factors, proves the necessity of introducing case law into the Private International Law of China. Part four, which is also the last part, enunciates several salient issues of this introduction. Part One: the status quo of Private International Law of China. This part is divided into two aspects. 1. Legislation. There is no Private International Law Code in our country yet. A lot of defects still exist in current statutory provisions of Private International Law of China. Some notable defects are: (a) The provisions are scattered and lack logic and consistency. (b) Other than those scattered provisions mentioned above, there's almost no prescription at all in other fields of civil relations involving foreign factors. A lot of fundamental issues of Private International Law remain untouched. (c) Technically speaking, the conflicts law and procedural law are severely unbalanced in the current laws of our country. For the purpose of changing this situation, scholars have drafted the "Model Law of Private International Law of PRC" (hereinafter referred to as "Model Law") which they hope to act as a model for the legislature. But still there are some defects therein which make it unable to handle all the problems in real life. 2. Judicature. The lack of statutory provisions makes it possible for judicial construction to grow on a large scale. The validity of judicial construction is arguable and in many circumstances judicial construction results in a problem called "judicial construction eroding legislation," i.e. (a) Judicial construction amending statutory law, and (b) Judicial construction providing supplement to statutory law when there are no pertinent provisions. It can be said that there are a lot of defects in the Private International Law of China. Part Two: statute law and case law. Basically this part deals with two issues. 1. Defects of statute law. The following facts make it necessary for supplement to and construction of statute law: (a) It is impossible for the legislature to predict all the possibilities in judicial practice; (b) Even if they could do so, it would also be impossible for the legislature to incarnate their predictions flawlessly. 2. The complementary relationship and mutual reference between statute law and case law. Both of the two legal sources have advantages and disadvantages which make the countries of either legal genealogy feel it necessary to use for reference the typical legal source of their counterparts. As for civil law countries, firstly, many traditional civil law countries have gradually introduced case law to their legal system; secondly, despite the denial of the "doctrine of stare decisis" and that judges have the power to make law, the courts of these countries are strongly inclined to follow precedents, especially those of their superior courts; thirdly, the administrative courts in France rely much upon precedents, and the administrative law of France has roots in the precedents made by their courts. Finally, many governmental and nongovernmental compilations of precedents are published in civil...
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