On the evening of November 8th, 2021, the lecture series of "New Ideas" started on the fifth online session of the second season. Teacher Sun Xinkuan gave a wonderful lecture on the topic of Concept of Civil Law—The Beauty of Private Autonomy and the Burden of Self-responsibility . More than 150 students from the Law School listened online. The lecture was presided over by Mr. Li Dejia of Law School.
At the beginning of the lecture, Mr. Sun took Articles 148 and 6 of the Civil Code as examples, starting from the distinction between rules and principles in civil law, and leading out the theme of the lecture.—"The concept of civil law", and briefly explained the importance of the two concepts of "private autonomy" and "self-responsibility" in civil law.
Then, taking "private autonomy" as the clue, Mr. Sun discussed the meanings of freedom of contract, freedom of ownership, freedom of behavior, freedom of marriage, freedom of wills and information self-determination, and selected some typical cases in practice to sort out the embodiment of "private autonomy" in Civil Code for everyone, thinking that private autonomy is a main thread running through all the editions of the Civil Code.
Next, Mr. Sun pointed out that the other side of "private autonomy" means "self-responsibility". "Self-responsibility" is embodied in many aspects, such as strict contract, fault liability, risk principle, etc., for which Mr. Sun—Made a simple explanation.
At the end of the lecture, Mr. Sun made a brief summary, thinking that "private autonomy" and "self-responsibility" are an important perspective to understand many civil law systems, which together reflect the autonomy of people as subjects of civil law, and people should cherish this autonomy, make good use of the space for free behavior and make decisions prudently.
Finally, the host, Mr. Li Dejia, summarized the contents of the lecture, shared the lecture topics with everyone from the perspective of Chinese traditional law, and thanked Mr. Sun for his wonderful lecture. The lecture ended successfully.
