Very interesting. Makes sense.

The good news was that I felt a great sense of accomplishment and Article 3 became a little bit easier to read and understand.

There seems to be more information crammed in there than my western brain can handle. PRC documents in particular consist of interminably long paragraph-length sentences mercilessly strung together with 因此 or the dreaded 而！Is it contrastive 而？Simple clause resumptive 而？Who knows? Each paragraph or article inevitably starts out: 按照 (in accordance with) such and such a regulation from the circular on the effective stipulations as specified by the...it really makes the head spin.

You really do have to wade through it a few times to make heads or tails of it, let alone come up with a readable translation.

Chinese booksellers also have large amounts of "law for layman" books.

These textbooks are essential because they explain the basic concepts behind the German-based Chinese legal system. These basic concepts are "person", "juristic act", "thing", "right", "obligation", "liability."

2) I've only found one decent English textbook on Chinese law and unfortunately that book is not at my desk right now, but I can post the name in two or three days. The Nutshell pocket handbook on the PRC legal system is something you should read for what a bad textbook looks like, since it is about twenty years out of date and basically misses the point.

One thing that you will quickly figure out in reading Chinese legal textbooks is how important reading another language is, since only fragments of the body of knowledge that exists in Chinese has been translated into English.

3) Reading American "law review" texts is a good thing because just skimming a book on contract law how the German-based Chinese system is different from the English based American system. The one caveat is that you will do better to get a "law review" text like Gilbert's or the Nutshell guides rather than a law textbook itself. US law schools use the ""casebook" method of teaching law, and this method simply does not work for teaching Roman-derived based systems. One thing that you might want to do is to get a law school text books (these are very expensive however) and then you'll quickly appreciate how the basic principles of English-based law is different from Roman/German-based law.

Something you will pick up is how heavily US law has influenced PRC ideas on securities and banking as well as on torts, and how little it has influenced PRC contract and corporate law.

4) The Chinese laws you should look at first are the PRC Constitution, the General Principles of Civil Law and the Legislation Law. These are framework laws. The other thing that should look at are procedural laws such as the criminal procedure law, the civil procedure law, and the administrative procedure law. Finally, one thing that you'll quickly pick up is the difference between different types of regulations, what the difference is between a "regulation", a "measure", and an "interpretation."

5) As far as websites go. My favorite is the www.civillaw.com.cn That website gives you a flavor for current and past debates. One of the useful things on that site is a paper on the legislative process for the company law, and you get to see how Chinese legislation is drafted, and how and why people fight over one or two phrases in a law. Also a good site is www.paulhastings.com. They have English translations of changes in Chinese law.

6) Finally, if you are adventurous, you can go into the German based law of the Republic of China on Taiwan and English based Hong Kong law. Both of those jurisdictions have had a huge amount of influence on PRC law. Also there is a book on Soviet law which I found to be very useful in understanding some of the philosophical issues that PRC law drafters faced.

William C Jones "Basic Principles of Civil Law In China" published by ME Sharpe. Inc.

It's a translation of a Chinese text, and somewhat dated since it was written in 1989, but it's the only decent overview of Chinese law that I've ever seen in English.

Using Yahoo! mail (@yahoo.com), my account is stevendaniels88.
Thanks.

Amen to that. Had a bilingual document plunked down in front of me last week (the non-Chinese language was not English and is one that I do not speak). Being told to generate an English-language contract off it concentrated the mind wonderfully, but each paragraph-sized sentence still needed 3-4 read throughs before understanding.

Sometimes I think you don't need diagrams to understand these sentences so much as you need an annotated map.

I am a Chinese native speaker based in Hong Kong and fluent in Chinese and English. I work as a full-time translator at my own small company on documents from English to Chinese and vice versa.

I am happy to get to know many foreigners are so interested in PRC laws. Actually I finished a course on PRC commercial and industrial laws many years ago, which is very helpful to my career.

I previously worked as a translator at China Law & Practice (a legal publishing house in Hong Kong)and several international law firms like Lovells, Linklaters and Deacons, dealing with various documents such as Chinese joint venture contracts, letters of intent, patent applications and oppositions, etc. I now focus on translation for H-shares companies in Hong Kong.

I must say I am pretty experienced in PRC legal and financial translation, and happy to answer any questions in relation thereto in future on your blog, or if you are looking for a freelance translator to do any paid translation assignments (E-C or C-E), you may try me.

Regards,
Clement