The Beneficial Law: The Extremalization of Substantive Justice

The Law of the Application of Law for Foreign-related Civil Relations of the People's Republic of China enacted in 2010 requires application of the most beneficial substantive law in some foreign relationships. Though this may be positive to realize the trend of substantive justice of conflict of laws,it also adds obstacle for the court to ascertain and accurately apply foreign law,which is not beneficial for the simplification of judicial tasks. The beneficial law approach is a reproduction of American best law theory which requires judges to compare the different results of foreign substantive laws. We should bear in mind that the trend of substantive justice of conflict of laws should be limited in a scope and not replace the role of substantive law. Otherwise,conflict of laws will lose its stability and predictability and at last lose its value of rule. Considering that it has been enacted not long,the Supreme Court should rectify it by judicial interpretation at present.