A Study Of The Criminal Law In The Song Dynasty

In Song Dynasty, the ruling class learning from the feudal warlordism of the actual chiefs of different states in the late of Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties, they paid great attention to constructing the legal system, and established a series of law system which was more thorough and careful than that of Tang Dynasty.The Song Dynasty was very active in legislative activities. Early in the Emperor Zhenzong period, the Song Dynasty founded the special institution of editing imperial order, which was the first special legislature branch set up outside the judicial function department in Chinese history. The Song Dynasty generally established several special branches that were responsible for editing laws and regulations of various departments. There was a series of quite fixed legislative procedures. While the Song Dynasty was editing a new law, it consisted of two aspects. One aspect was to examine and finalize the old laws again and to revise them. The other was to arrange the imperial administrative decrees issued continuously by the emperor and to make the decrees the new laws. In the procedure of revising laws, the institution of editing imperial order drew up the draft law, then the draft law should get through the necessary procedure of legislative approval, and finally authorized by the emperor. During the legislative procedure, the government widely sought opinions, and encouraged the officials and civilians to put forward any suggestions. As the government improved the legislative system, it founded the relative system of proclaiming, receiving and registering laws, thus forming the complete system. Therefore, the civilians could promptly understood the laws issued by the government.On legislative technology, the Song Dynasty divided laws into general laws and special laws and edited a large number of "Examining Docile", Although it wasn't published, it played an important role in legislative activities. The government adopted the method of editing the scattered imperial administrative decrees regularly and of publishing the decrees in spring and autumn in order to stabilize the law codes.Because some of the scattered imperial administrative decrees couldn't be revised as eternal laws, but they were worth referring to a certain extent, the government compiled the imperial administrative decrees into "Administrative Interpretation Complying With Imperial Orders", so that it could consulted.On legislative regulations, the government strengthened the supervision and administration of the legislators. The judges couldn't change the laws at will. The Song Dynasty carried out the principle that the imperial orders were superior codes. And according to social demand, the government carried out the flexible principle in order to promptly adjust the social relations.The criminal laws system of the Song Dynasty consisted of the code, the imperial order and the precedent case. In Song Dynasty. the code referred to "Song Xing Tong", which was mainly based on the Tang Dynasty codes. In Song Dynasty, the codes weren't replaced by the collection of imperial orders. The codes were used as the basic law all along, as they played a vital role. In Song Dynasty, the collection of imperial orders would be revised frequently, which was the distinctive feature in the ancient Chinese legislative history. In the early Song Dynasty, the collections of imperial orders were comprehensive law codes. Since Emperor Shenzong period, the style of the imperial order had changed into four law forms, such as imperial orders, writs, administrative regulation and rules on government establishments.There were several established rules from settled cases in Song Dynasty. Those belonging to the criminal law were called precedent cases. Usually, the emperor sent out the imperial decree to revise the precedent cases. Cases or the institution concerned was ordered to do so, and finally approved by the emperor. The precedent cases were models of law application. When there were no formed clauses in the common law, people could settle a lawsuit according...