Research On The Theory Of Government Units Legal Person From The Perspective Of Local Government Debt

Government units are treated as the (private) legal person is a remarkable characteristicin our Civil Law. Except for the influence of the former Soviet union，the provision in the lawis determined by the specific economic model and political system at that time. There is nodenying that the theory played a positive role, easy for the extensive government unitsparticipating in the civil activities. However, along with the development of economic andsocial life changes，after government units are treated as the private legal person, manyproblems produced. This paper choose one of them---local government debt---as a startingpoint, abandoning the complicated financial, economic data and theory, off the beaten track，from the angle of civil law science，providing the lawyer’s reflection on the formationreasons，prevention and control of local government debt. At the same time, at present localgovernment debt is expanding rapidly and the amount is more than10trillion, equivalent toabout16.5%of GDP of China. The huge size of local government debt is like Sword ofDamocles over Chinese heads, bringing the tremendous risks to the healthy and stabledevelopment of our economy and society. So this paper can also be regarded as a response tothe hot issues.The main body of this paper includes three parts: the first part elaborates the theory ofgovernment legal person and its causes, and compares the difference between it and publiccorporation; the second part firstly states the concept and characteristics of local governmentdebt next from the macro background and concrete route, analyses the formation reasons oflocal government debt, at last points out the risks of local government debt expansion; thethird part discusses the theoretical problem and practical difficulty through processing thelocal government debt by the theory of government legal person in current conditions. Thelast part summarizes the many problems brought by the theory of government legal person,and makes the author’s own suggestion on the civil position of government units in the futureCivil Code: above all, in the long run, our country’s future Civil Code should establish thedivision between private person and public corporation as the precondition, then the theory ofgovernment units as private person should be abandoned, the country as a whole should betreated as the special civil subject, in principle government units can’t be endowed with theindependent civil position and they are only on behalf of the country and in the country’s name to participate in the civil activities.This paper makes two innovations: firstly multi-disciplinary research methods are used.To be specific, except for the adoption of the civil research methods, a lot of research resultsand methods in administrative law science and civil procedural law science are used forreference, which makes this paper break through the traditional civil scope to adapt toconstant changes of economic and social life much easier; then this paper pay attention to theelaboration of legal theory as well as judicial practice, which realizes the organic unity of thetheory research and the empirical analysis.