Lost Property System Study

According to the modern civil law's theory of jus in rem, the civil main body usually may obtain the movable property rights based on two kinds of reasons: First is to obtain the movable property rights which based on the legal acts, such as to buy and sell. Second is to obtain the movable property rights which based on the other reason except the first one, includes to discover the missing object ,to discover treasure-trove and the facts of occupation. In our daily life, losing things and picking up lost property are matters of common occurrence. The dispute for returning the lost property is also common. So there are lots of provisions to regulate the acts of picking up lost property in many countries' civil codes. In Japan ,there is a special law, Lost Property Law. Doing some research on lost property system have big theory value and practical significance.Today, we have basically established the market economy system. We have also adopted the basic economic system which the main body is public ownership system, the varied kinds of ownership systems development coexistent. Under this background, the people purse the wealth. The people's pursuit which their investments and repays should have the direct ratio became the right requests. People's moral standards and the value orientation have had corresponding change. But our law about lost property defends stubbornly the former day's disciplines, neglects the law's changes with social environment and proposes inappropriate request for people. Lofty moral regulations rise to legal norms. The value's conflict between ideal aspirations of moral and demand of secular interests has showed. The interests between loser and picker are also seriously imbalance. People get no incentive from our law to pick up and return the lost property. Our law also has no help to protect loser's property rights. Therefore, it is very necessary to reform our lost property system according to the fact of our country and reference of other countries' laws.The article is composed of the introduction, the main text and the concluding remark. The main text includes three parts.The first part is the basic theory questions of lost property. First of all, I described the concept of lost property. Then I discriminated the lost property with the correlation concepts. There is no law in the world to stipulate the concept of lost property clearly. The controversy over the lost property still remains in academic. The article according to Roman law, German Civil Law and views of scholars points out the concept of lost property. Lost property refers to the thing that occupant lose not owing to his meaning ,nobody occupies but someone has ownership to at present. There are five compositions. First, it is moveable property. Second, occupant must lose occupying. Third, losing property is not the meaning of the loser. Fourth, nobody occupies it now. Fifth, someone has ownership to the lost property. Then the article analyzes the picker and his act in detail. The act of picking is not legal acts. Therefore, becoming a picker is unnecessary to have perfect capacity for act .The second part is the research of comparison legislation and the value analysis of lost property. The comparison legislation is composed of longitudinal research and crosswise research. This part compares the system of lost property of Roman, different periods in our country, Chinese Taiwan and some typical countries, such as Germany, France, Japan. In crosswise research, I analyze the system of lost property based on the ethics and the economic. Through the moral analysis and the economic analysis, I proved that to reform our current law of the system of lost property is not only consistent with current society's actual moral standard, but also consistent with the economic man's natural disposition under the market economy background and the efficient principle. What's more, it can integrate economic man with moral man perfectly.The third part is the flaws of the lost property's legislation and its consummation. Firstly, I analyzed the reason and the flaws which the country obtains the property rights. And I criticized the viewpoint that all lost property belong to the country. I suggested that when the picker fulfilled his obligations of informing, reporting, preserving and returning, he should have the right to request cost and remuneration, the right of retention and the right to get the lost property when no one comes to claim it. Finally, I carried on the detailed legislation of lost property. In this way, not only the concept of the lost property ,but also the loser and the picker's rights and obligations can be definite very much.