Research On The Lawyers' Association In Republican China

Republican China Lawyers' association system is the core of Lawyer system and the important part of legal system of Republican China. It is not the necessary result of the development of Chinese society, but resulted from the transplant of western legal system for the purpose of national prosperity and dependence since late Qing dynasty. Lawyers' association aimed to guarantee human rights, restrain state power and realize social justice; but the immediate cause is the taking back of consular jurisdiction. The system is loaded with some other functions, which didn't make it develop naturally but became the tool of notional prosperity and dependence, therefore, its own function wasn't fully exerted.In the beginning, Lawyers' association system wasn't perfect in legislation procedures and regulation system, but its regulation construction and operation mechanism was quite close to its original function. With the amendment made by the government, its legislation procedures became normal, but it derailed off its original functions. Whatsoever, its organization structure and operation mechanism always maintained democratic negotiation, ranging from chairman system, committee system to board system. The law required chairman system, thus Shanghai Lawyers' Association with committee system was illegal and temporary, but under the condition that the leaders received no pay, committee system was more suitable for democratic negotiation system. Compared with chairman system, which had many interior conflicts and irregular meetings, committee system seemed more advantageous, hence it was maintained finally. In the late period of Sino-Japanese War, the newly issued Lawyer Law required board system, which is associated with the good operation of committee system. Although the state government avoided conflicts between state power and nation-wide Lawyer organization in the design of Lawyer association system, Lawyer associations all over the country joined into a national organization and to a certain degree a civil "pressure group" came into being.Lawyers' association is an organization formed by free professionals; though it was founded by Lawyers, its members were obliged to join it by the government. Because of professional specialty, by means of regulation design, the state set Lawyers under double supervision by the state and the trade, in which state played a leading role, but the association was actually run by itself. Although it was influenced by state and society, Lawyers' association enjoyed much freedom in quality identification and punishment of illegal deeds, which guaranteed its authority. But in many cases, the initiative of...