NEW PROVISIONS FOLLOW MILK SCANDAL

The draft also covers compensation for harm from defective products.

It stipulates that victims can seek "punitive damages," which could be more than their actual losses, if companies knowingly produce and sell defective products.

Companies that fail to warn customers, recall defective products or take other effective measures to remedy damage, would face tort liability.

"The provisions are directly linked to the Sanlu scandal," said Yang, who helped draft the law.

Yang said compensation for harm from defective products is included in the Law on Product Quality. But to include the compensation in the Tort Law is "something we have been pushing for years," he said. "I am ecstatic."

Yang and his colleagues were delegated to draft the law in 2000. "The 2002 version didn't have such provisions. They were included in the draft in September," he said.

The law could be applied in compensation cases involving victims of the Sanlu baby formula melamine-adulteration scandal, Yang said.

A central government investigation team found that the Sanlu Group in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province, continued producing and selling tainted baby formula even after it began to receive customer complaints at the end of 2007.

According to the Ministry of Health, at least six babies were killed and 290,000 others were sickened by the formula, most of which was produced by Sanlu.

The 88-provision draft covers compensation for a wide range of cases, including traffic accidents, medical accidents, job injury, pollution, Internet abuse and even harm caused by other people's pets.

Yang said in most Continental law systems, tort liabilities are included in credit laws.

"To have a separate tort law, which covers all types of torts, is unique in Continental law," he said.

In contrast to other civil laws like the property law, which tells people what their rights are, the tort law tells people how to protect their rights, Yang said.

"It would be a milestone in China's legislative history," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2008)