On the evening of 23rd April, 2024, Mr. Wang Zejian, Professor Emeritus of National Taiwan University and a leading civil law scholar, was invited to give a lecture on the topic of ‘The Construction of the Interpretation of Unjust Enrichment Law’ to the faculty members and students of Southeast University at the Lecture Hall of JiZhong Building of the JiDongHu Campus of Southeast University. The lecture was sponsored by the Law School of Southeast University and the Civil Prosecution Research Base of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (Civil Prosecution Research Centre of Southeast University), and hosted by Professor Shi Jianhui of the Law School of Southeast University.

The lecture hall was full, Professor Wang Zejian entered the venue in the warm applause of all teachers and students. Before the start of the lecture, Professor Ouyang Benqi, Dean of the Faculty of Law of Southeast University, on behalf of Professor Wang Zegian, presented Nanjing special cloud brocade as a token of respect, and student representatives presented flowers to Professor Wang Zegian.

Professor Wang Zegian firstly introduced the function and importance of the law of unjust enrichment, and introduced the important legal research method of legal interpretation to construct the law of unjust enrichment. Subsequently, Professor Wang Zegian introduced the system of unjust enrichment in Roman law and German law, as well as the legislation of mainland China, Taiwan and Germany, and made vertical and horizontal comparisons to show the audience the historical foundation and development of the system. In order to better illustrate the importance of the system of unjust enrichment law and jurisprudence to the development of legal doctrine, Professor Wang introduced a precedent from the Supreme Court of Taiwan, which created six types of unjust enrichment and six independent bases for unjust enrichment claims, and further illustrated the difference between payment unjust enrichment and rights and interests in the form of a case. The case further illustrates the elements of unjust enrichment in the form of payment and infringement of rights and interests, and focuses on the issue of unjust enrichment in the case of directing payment and the difference between infringement of rights and interests and torts.

Finally, Professor Wang Zegian pointed out the similarities and differences between the civil law provisions on unjust enrichment in Taiwan and mainland China, and put forward his own views on the development of the mainland unjust enrichment law. As a conclusion, Prof. Wang Zegian hoped that everyone would focus on the study of unjustified enrichment, understand the structure of unjustified enrichment, extensively collect the jurisprudence of the mainland, Taiwan and Germany, and improve the legal system of unjustified enrichment through the method of legal interpretation, so as to establish a general theory and make the law of unjustified enrichment understandable, learnable and arguable, and he also hoped that the School of Law of Southeast University would continue to make greater contribution to the exchange of jurisprudence between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. At the same time, he hopes that Southeast University School of Law can continue to make greater contributions to cross-strait legal exchange.

At the end of the lecture, Professor Wang Zegian also put forward two expectations to the students: firstly, to study the law, one should ‘get up earlier, sleep later, and push oneself a little bit’; secondly, one should collect more judicial precedents, and condense these precedents into case questions, and exchange and discuss them with classmates, so as to improve one's analytical and argumentative ability in jurisprudence.

In the question and answer session, Professor Wang Zegian answered students' questions on “whether Article 157 of the Civil Code can be used as the basis of claim alone”, “how to view the strong attitude of the current functionalist legislation, and whether it is necessary to continue to adhere to the direction of typology”, “the return of unjust enrichment”, and “whether it is necessary to continue to adhere to the direction of typological efforts”. ‘The scope of the object of the return of unjust enrichment’ and other questions for the students to answer their doubts.

On behalf of all the teachers and students, Professor Shan Pingji, Vice Dean of Law School of Southeast University and Director of Civil Prosecution Research Base of Supreme People's Procuratorate (Civil Prosecution Research Centre of Southeast University), expressed his heartfelt thanks to Professor Wang Zegian for his third visit to Southeast University, and shared a few learning experiences on the content of the lectures: firstly, civil law begins with cases, and we must not talk about the theory only bypassing the cases. Secondly, we must pay attention to the analysis method of the basis of claim. Thirdly, we should pay attention to the research method of comparative law, which will help us to solve the problems in legislation and judicial practice by studying the legislation and cases of Germany, Japan and other countries, as well as Taiwan and mainland China.

At the end of the lecture, Prof Wang Zegian signed and encouraged the students to study civil law seriously and contribute to the improvement of the rule of law.

Text: Yu Qiang, Lv Cheng