| From 1898 to 1930, Weihaiwei Garrison was forcibly leased by Great Britain for a period of 32 years during which a large number of laws and regulations constituting the major part of its legal system were promulgated. Theses laws and regulations which set up comparatively consummate legal system in Weihaiwei Garrision played a very important role in the administration of Weihaiwei Garrison colonial governing and safeguarding their colonial interests. Systematic and detailed researches on Weihaiwei Garrison legal system during the leased period have critical historic and practical significance, particularly to the modernization of Chinese legal system.During the composition of this thesis, such skills as historical analysis, normative analysis and comparative analysis were employed to introduce the specific content of Weihaiwei Garrison's legal system, to summarize its characteristics and analyze reasons of its formation which lead to the conclusions from which how Chinese legal modernization can get potential references and may be enlightened. Hereunder is the structure and content of this thesis:Chapter one is an introduction which focuses on significances to choose to research on the legal system in Weihaiwei Garrison during the period leased by British as well as the specific introductions and analysis on the current status quo of research in this area and disquisitive skills to be used are parts of the focuses of chapter one. Research on this subject has great value in that it can fill the gap of the legal history, enrich the cultural heritage of Weihai and give reference to Chinese legal modernization. However, this research area does not attract enough attentions from scholars, particularly Chinese scholars, so the study scope and academic achievement are very limited, and the research on this subject, for example, lack of systematic study, limited usage of archives and lack of practical significance,and so on,do exist although achievements had been made over the years.Chapter two specifies the history that UK leased Weihaiwei Garrison including the history background, signing of Weihaiwei Garrison Lease Treaty, characteristic and legal status of Weihaiwei Garrison and detailed description on the UK's takeover of Weihaiwei Garrison from china. The first Sino-Japanese war had become the preface for imperialists to carve up China, particularly in the north part of China where Russia signed a lease on Dalian and Lvshun, Germany took over Jiaozhou,Great Britain took the advantage of the above situation in China and forced the decaying Qing Empire to sign the Treaty of Leasing Weihaiwei Garrison in order to lease weihaiwei Garrison forcibly. As for the nature or the legal status of Weihaiwei Garrison, It has always been controversial among scholars. Through an in-depth analysis, the author concludes that the nature of Weihaiwei Garrison is different from that of colony and cession of territory, so its legal status to some extent is independent; therefore, it is proper to call it the leased territory. During the period leased by Great Britain, the Chinese government had never given up her sovereignty. Through the effort of central government, sovereignty over Weihaiwei Garrison was transferred to Republic of China after more than 30 years of lease.Chapter three introduces structures of the colonial governing mechanism which has given us a better understanding of its power, operation mechanism, leased territory officials'power and obligations, government structure, the special and important role of policemen and district headman in the colonial government. Chief Administrator of Weihaiwei Garrison had the supreme power within himself of administration, legislation and judicature all by himself, however this did not lead to dictatorship while on the contrary had very positive effect on the administration. The officials of the colonial government had premium administrative abilities, especially those policemen who shouldered a wide range of responsibilities and contributed a lot to the social order at that time. This had a sharp contrast with the Chinese politics that craved for a road of democracy while the other had centralized power and traditional ruling tactics. The systematic legal system provided a platform to control government officials'behavior and this was exactly what the Chinese government lacked of at that time. In the rural area, the implementation of system of village headman and district headman insured the stability and order of the society.Chapter four emphasizes the study of civil laws, in which detailed information were provided on legislation, land regulations, marriage regulations, succession regulations and copyright regulations of Weihaiwei Garrison. Among these, land laws and regulations are the most consummate one partly because of the emphasis of land legislation and judicature by the colonist. The laws and regulations regarding marriage, succession and copyright had very limited implementation in that it is mainly valid for the foreigners in weihaiwei Garrison. Through the interpretation of the civil laws and regulations, together with its implementation, it could be easy to find that the legal system in Weihaiwei Garrison was actually a kind of "one region, two systems" mechanism. At the end of the chapter, definition and detailed introduction of "one region, two systems" were presented. The author concludes that the civil law of Weihaiwei Garrison during UK's lease period was mainly based on the traditional Chinese legal system and custom meanwhile combined with the laws and regulations promulgated by the colonial government. As defined above, it was actually a kind of "one region, two systems" tactics used in legal system.Chapter five is a research on the criminal legal system during the period Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British. This chapter, in the first place, introduces the main legislations on the aspect of crime and punishment, including infringement on women and maids, assault and battery, flogging regulations and renvoi. Contrary to the "one region, two systems" in civil laws, as of the applicability of criminal laws during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by Britain, the British-Weihaiwei colonial government discarded the Chinese criminal laws but applied the criminal statutes newly-issued by colonial government. The conflict between China and the western on criminal law culture accounts for this phenomenon. That is, when there were differences and conflicts to some extent about criminal law concepts, basic principles and contents of criminal laws, and in the views of British colonists, the traditional Chinese criminal law system was outdated and should be taken place by more civilized criminal laws. But on the practice of criminal laws, due to the relatively low criminal crime rate during the period of weihaiwei Garrison leased by British, the criminal laws issued and enforced by British-Weihaiwei colonists didn't do much.Chapter six is an introduction on administrative legal system during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British. British-Weihaiwei colonial government owned huge administrative power but each of that should be empowered by corresponding laws. On this research on administrative law system during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British, this thesis, in the light of the main administrative regulations and contents of these regulations, makes detailed introduction and treatise on public sanitation management laws, administrative permission laws, and opium trade management laws. Through decoding these administration laws, we'll be surprised at many regulations because over one hundred years earlier, the British colonists stressed greatly on public sanitation and protection of natural environment. A series of measures adopted not only had great social effects at that time, but also were related to the first national sanitation city which was awarded to Weihai after the establishment of new China. In addition, British-Weihaiwei colonial government put emphasis on the legislation of administrative permission and adjustment of social economic relations through administrative laws.Chapter seven is an introduction on the international legal system during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British. Owing to the matter that the World War I broke out in Europe and Britain was the main fighting party of Triple Entente, British government recruited Chinese workers to go to Europe to join battle by bleaching the agreement signed with Chinese government and even detouring the Chinese government. At the meantime, in order to control the battle situation, the British-Weihaiwei colonial government issued a series of statutes, mainly targeting at hindering and forbidding the entrance into Weihaiwei of emigrants from anti-Britain countries and the trade between Weihaiwei businesspersons and enemy countries. After the World Warâ… , the Britain signed peace agreements with allied nations, taking the actual situation in Weihaiwei into consideration, the British-Weihaiwei colonial government issued and enforced corresponding laws and statutes. Therefore, this chapter mainly consists of following three aspects:dealing with emigrants from enemy countries, trade and peace agreements.Chapter eight introduces the judicature system during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British from the following three aspects:court structure, litigation system and prison system. During the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British, commissioner, district court, high courts and the subsequent senior district officer and junior district officer, all the above together, were in charge of the litigation matters of Weihaiwei leased territory. While in vast rural areas, the British colonist then preserved the dispute-settlement mechanism with intermediation as the core. Meanwhile, on the base of former dispute-settlement mechanism, the judicature function of village headman and district headman was enlarged. As far as litigation system is concerned, the litigation system during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British was mainly based on The Wei-hai-wei Order in Council 1901. This thesis gives detailed introduction on the material criminal and civil litigation systems. Besides, the prison system during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British was relatively complete with its own features.The last chapter makes conclusion of features and cause of formation of legal system during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British, and analyses the potential instructions for construction of Chinese legal system modernization basing on the conclusion. The author holds the view that the legal system during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British had its own features in form, in content and in actual legal effects. However, lots of causes contributes to the formation of legal system, to this, this chapter makes detailed analysis from the following three aspects: the perspectives of British colonist, actual situation in Weihaiwei Garrison and attributes of legal system itself. Then at last this chapter expounds several instructions derived from legal system of Weihaiwei leased by British for our legal system modernization construction from the following aspects:subjectivity of legal system modernization, the multi-facetedness of legal culture, the supreme authority of law, and modernization of human kind ect, simultaneously, cites the cautions of Johnston dated back to over one hundred years as words that drive us to re-ponder the legal system modernization construction.For all above, although legal system during the period of Weihaiwei Garrison leased by British was provided with strong colonial characteristics, from the point of the content of legal system itself and actual legal effects, undoubtedly it indeed had specific effect in that specific period. And as the "experimental field" of British and American legal system in China, its actual effect of legal system and the contrast formed against contemporary Chinese legal system under reformation shed light on our present legal system construction.
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