Research On The Validity Of Electronic Contract Signed By Minors

In response to social development and practical needs,China issued the E-commerce Law in 2018 to adjust all kinds of transaction relationships between equal subjects through the Internet.According to article 469 of The Civil Code of China and Article 4 of the Electronic Signature Law,data messages that can express the contents in a tangible way by means of electronic data exchange and can be retrieved and used at any time shall be regarded as written form.Electronic contracts are recognized as a type of traditional contract written form.The existing contract law and the legislation of e-commerce although do keep pace with The Times,but for the minor electronic contract involves some of the problems that still exist ambiguity and practice of difficult operational,the effectiveness of the minor electronic contract determine if cannot form a unified standard,also causes the judicial inconsistent.This thesis tries to discuss the relevant issues affecting the validity of electronic contracts of minors and analyzes electronic contracts with different validity based on the data found.Firstly,the general theory of juvenile electronic contract is studied.By analyzing different viewpoints in the academic world and combining the provisions of Article 2 of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce,the concept of electronic contract is clarified.On this basis,it defines the electronic contract of minors,analyzes the particularity of the electronic contract of minors,and classifies the electronic contract commonly used by minors based on the actual situation.Secondly,the subject identity and contracting capacity of electronic contract are studied.According to the provisions of Article 13 and Article 16 of the Electronic Signature Law,electronic signature and electronic authentication are adopted as the identification methods of the subject identity of minors in electronic contracts,and the constituent elements of "reliable electronic signature" are clarified.Article 48 of the Electronic Commerce Law presumes that the parties to an electronic contract have civil capacity.The direct impact of this regulation is to lead to the transfer of the burden of proof,but does not solve the problem of minors’ online contracting ability,which is still controversial in academic circles.By analyzing the feasibility of different theories,the identification standard of minors’ contracting ability is clarified.Finally,the validity of electronic contract for minors is studied.The invalid electronic contracts of minors include the electronic contracts signed by minors who do not have the ability to conclude a contract,the electronic contracts not ratified by legal representatives and the electronic contracts whose contents violate the mandatory provisions of laws.According to the provisions of Article 144 of the Civil Code,the validity of the contract of pure benefit for persons without civil capacity is discussed,and the responsibility distribution of legal agent and network platform is clarified.The electronic contract whose validity is to be determined includes the electronic contract which the minor exceeds the contracting capacity and which the minor has no right to sign by proxy.Combined with the actual cases,it is concluded that the behavior of minors beyond the contracting capacity includes three factors: the transaction behavior does not conform to the behavior characteristics of minors,the transaction amount exceeds the level of peers,and the contract content exceeds the cognition of minors.Voidable electronic contracts include those concluded due to material misunderstanding,apparent unfairness or fraud.The influence of electronic error on the validity of the contract should be clarified in the case of major misunderstanding caused by electronic error in the electronic contract.From the Angle of protecting the goodwill counterpart,this thesis makes clear the constitutive elements of electronic "fraud" carried out by minors and the validity of electronic contract under different fraudulent acts.