Modern Chinese Evidence System

In this article, ancient China evidence system was firstly researched. Then, the six features of ancient China evidence system were presented. The first feature was that the exist time of god judge was transient; the second was the valuing of confession in criminal lawsuit; the third was that the rights and duties of the witness were effected by the Confucianism; the fourth was that the way of getting evidences by persecution was legal; the fifth was that the lawful evidence system did not keep the main place in the judgment of the testimony; the sixth was the justice official would be punished by criminal law if they violated the evidence law. Among the six features of ancient China evidence system, the valuing of confession and the way of getting evidences by persecution got most criticism. The reason was that the valuing of confession leaded the overflow of the way of getting evidences by persecution and this can lead the overflow of the cases of injustice. In modern times of China, the two aspects of ancient China evidence system, which were the valuing of confession and the way of getting evidences by persecution, got more criticism again. It is the interflow between the Chinese law culture and the western law culture that gave the Chinese chances to realize a new court proceeding. After comparing the two ways of the court proceeding, the Chinese drew a conclusion that the Chinese court proceeding is an uncivilized one. So, people gave the way of getting evidence by persecution more criticism. In the early period of modern time, it is the intellectual of the improvement group that gave the main criticism to the way of getting evidence by persecution. Then, some official of Sing government such as Zhang Zitong began to criticize the way of getting evidence by persecution. The point of such official was not to abolish the way of getting evidence by persecution but to confine it's utilize. The amending and the perfecting of law in the late Sing Dynasty, which stand on the basis of criticizing the backwards of ancient China evidence system, has unveiled the heavy curtain of transforming the traditional evidence system. Comparing to the ancient China evidence system, the evidence system in the status of late Sing Dynasty was more comprehensive and plentiful. There were three advanced contents of the evidence system in the status of late Sing Dynasty. The first one was that the criminal evidence system and the civil evidence system were enacted separately and the way of getting evidence by persecution was abolished in civil lawsuits as it was restrained in criminal lawsuits. The second one was that some new rulers about appraiser, inquest, testimony conserving were enacted. The third was that the principle of the share of the duty to offer evidence, the ruler of evidence investigation, the principle of drawing judgment by evidence and the principle of legalizing evidence freely were established. Such aspects greatly reformed the ancient China evidence system. So, the author regarded the amending and the perfecting of law in the late Sing Dynasty as the beginning of the modern China evidence system. However, there still were some defects of the late Sing Dynasty evidence system. Among them, the important one is that though the way of getting evidences by persecution was restrained but not be abolished. The achievements of late Sing Dynasty evidence system incarnated in such four status Every Grade of Court>,< The Draft Law of Criminal Proceeding of the Great Sing Dynasty >. Among the four statuses, only the became effect in late Sing Dynasty, the other three didn't come into effect when the Sing Dynasty had been overthrow. So, the main achievements were not admitted by the administration of the justice into practice. That was another defect of the evidence system in late Sing Dynasty.In the early period of BeiYang government, the count...