Due to the highly specialized social division and the unparalleled development of commodity economy in modern society, the security of transaction becomes one of the top goals of value in law. The principle of reliance and the rules under its direction create the only way to realize the value of the security of transaction pursued by modern law. It is the guiding ideology and basic point of legal activities, and is the supreme guide line in civil law and the entire private law, so it is the basic principle of private law system. As to its functional attribution, the principle of reliance is the criterion of legislation, since its significance is to guide the legislators and executors on how to reasonably protect the interests of reliance rather than guide the parties on how to trust others. The promissory estoppel in common law, along with the diversified rules of the prima facie liabilities in continental legal system, and the liabilities for culpa in contrabendo, construct a huge and harmonious system of rules based on the principle of reliance. The majority of legal developments of the twentieth century can be described as the recognition of the rights and obligations engendered on the basis of reliance. The principle of reliance is the footstone and guide line of the institutional legal system and has already infiltrated through the system, no matter whether it is specialized by the positive law or not. Although the principle of good faith is defined as the king clause in private law by several scholars, and although it has been specialized by the positive law, the principle of reliance is in the dominant status in modern private law. Whenever value conflicts take place between the principle of reliance and other principles, the former has always priority over the latter for its high value. More over, the principle of reliance can be applied in the areas of contract liability, acquisition of ownership by time, legal easement, compensation for divorce, employer’s liability, and so on. It is along with the arising of liberalism and as its balance and correction that the principle of reliance acquired an important position. |