Research On Restraining Mechanism Of Criminal Trial Authority Of Song Dynasty

For the influence of unique factors of Song Dynasty such as politics, economy, culture, although the criminal trial system of Song Dynasty has not yet jumped out of the criminal trial system of feudal pattern on the general level, it appears a unique style that is different from other dynasties of China's feudal society in the construction of concrete system.The unique feature of the criminal trial system of Song Dynasty lies in the emphasis of the restraint to criminal trial authority, and take this as the goal, Song Dynasty pays great attention to the construction of related systems which formed a characteristic restraining mechanism of criminal trial authority. The original meaning of mechanism is organism's structure,functions and mutual relations. In other words, the mechanism itself is a system problem. The setting of restraining mechanism of criminal trial authority of Song Dynasty is also multi-level. As far as criminal trial authority itself is concerned,the construction of restraining mechanism of Song Dynasty mainly manifested as follows:First of all, criminal trial authority must be exercised dispersedly in order to make different trial organizations restrict reciprocally through multi-setting criminal trial organizations. Secondly, the internal department of trial organizations is carried on function division to make different departments in criminal trial organizations restrict reciprocally through the establishment of the "Juyanfensi" system.Once more, the higher trial organizations place on restriction to the subordinate trial organizations through the establishment of criminal-case review system.At the same time, Song Dynasty also attaches great importance to the restraint to criminal trial authority from other authorities, it mainly displays as follows:First, strengthen the restraint to criminal trial authority from imperial power. Song Dynasty strengthens the centralization compared to former dynasty,in the judicial practice the emperor strengthens the control to judicial authorities especially criminal trial authority by various means and interfers with the criminal trial activity directly to maintain the supremacy of imperial power. Second, Song Dynasty attaches importance to the restraint to criminal trial authority from administrative power. Third, Song Dynasty attaches importance to the restraint to criminal trial authority from supervisory power. We can say the control mechanism design that supervisory power takes to criminal trial authority is very complete.The emperor of each generation in Song Dynasty is soberly aware that the exercise of criminal trial authority would have an important influence on the consolidation of the imperial power. The operation of criminal trial system manifests a tendency that the Emperor active control criminal trial authority by strengthening system construction of restraining mechanism of criminal trial authority.lt is not only helpful for the emperor to control the trial organizations directly, but also can prevent judicial tyranny effectively. In addtion, the strengthen of the restraining mechanism of criminal trial authority of Song Dynasty may ensure that the judgment of first trial would be reviewed again or even more times which will undoubtedly play an active role to find and correct wrong judgments of first trial. In Song Dynasty, the wrong judgments in many criminal cases are corrected through the operation of restraining mechanism of criminal trial authority indeed.Certainly, there are obvious deficiencies in the restraining mechanism of criminal trial authority of Song Dynasty. First, the application of law in criminal trial is not unified for the multi-setting of the criminal trial organizations. Second, it leads to judicial function and supervisory function confused which causes the supervisory organizations lack of restriction from other organizations when hearing cases. Third, the multifarious and repeated criminal trial procedure which is the result of emphasizing the restriction to criminal trial authority in Song Dynasty causes low trial efficiency in criminal cases.Through the research on restraining mechanism of criminal trial authority of Song Dynasty we may have the following enlightenment: On the one hand, the mechanism design that Song Dynasty pays great attention to preventing abuse of power to realize judicial fair through the restriction to criminal trial authority and morden power allocation idea that people pay great attention to power balance in morden society are highly combined, therefore its reasonable factors are worth learning. On the other hand, the drawbacks that procrastinated cases and low trial efficiency which are the result of overemphasizing the restriction to criminal judicial authority should be overcome when we design the criminal trial system.