| Social change is inseparable from the revolution in science and technology and so is the development of law.The current trade disputes between China and the United States also tell that grasping the core technology means having more leading voices in economic,trade and legal rules.Technology influences not only the economic interests and political change,but also the rise and fall of a nation,as well as the survival and heritage of its culture.Looking back to the history of modern China,its legal changes saw the decline of state form,the invasion of great powers,the frequency of questioning tradition,and the ever-changing of political reform,as well as the development of physical economy,the wave of human rights,the divesting of concessions' legal power and the continuous absorbing from western learning.In 1904,the Hong Kong police began to use the British Henry's fingerprint analysis to print fingerprints.In 1905,the Qingdao patrol bureau started to use the German Hamburg's fingerprint analysis to identify suspects.In 1918,a policeman named Xia Quanyin went to Shanghai's public concession to study the Henry's analysis….However,the research on the systematic combing of fingerprint evidence technology then is yet in blank.There is an old saying that a man should be able to review past knowledge and acquire new knowledge,and also be able to tell the past and think about the future.The research of the introduction and development of fingerprint evidence technology,its technical divergence and local exploration,etc.may enrich the study of modern law and also provide some local referential resources for the current judicial reform.Taking the introduction and development of fingerprint evidence technology in China as the research object,selecting 1905-1949 years as the research time period,and through a series of historical data analysis and problem discussion,this author attempts to clarify the historical development of fingerprint evidence technology,to investigate the early practice and application of this technology,and to explain the introduction path,developmental motivation,disputes and differences of technological standards.Besides,this article is aimed to reflect on the relationship between prosecution and police,as well as the relationship between technology and law from the perspective of the technology's introduction and differences.Thereby it aims to correct some errors in the academic research of fingerprint evidence technology,explore the law of scientific development of evidence,and conclude local referential resources for the construction of current discourse system of the rule of law and judicial reform,especially the reform of judicial expertise system.Why did China introduce fingerprint evidence technology from the West? The most important cause for the conflict of legal systems is cultural conflict.At the end of the Qing Dynasty,it was not easy to introduce the fingerprint evidence technology into China.By the late imperial China,the long-term “Closed-cloorism” policy and the concept of “Celestial Empire” had plunged the scholar-officials into overconfidence in their traditional culture.Traditional institutions and experiences were regarded as orthodoxy,and those who were slightly in conflict were regarded as heresy.However,with the gradual spread of western learning in China,the traditional experiences exposed certain scientific problems which cannot be justified.Calendar Inquisition Case,which broke out in the 3th year of Kangxi's reign(1664),ostensibly was a contest of calendars,but in fact was a dispute over the right of speech between traditional culture and western learning.Hence the rulers must seek a reasonable explanation for introducing the more scientific western technology and defending traditional autocratic regimes at the same time.As the first answer considered,the idea of “the Western Culture Originating from China(namely Western advanced calendars and mathematics originated from ancient Chinese civilization)” helped regain cultural confidence.Unfortunately,this idea failed in logical reasonability because it overlooked the universality of scientific development,and cannot explain why Western learning was more advanced than Chinese learning.It was the Opuim War that brought the realistic problem that “the West was stronger than China” to the rulers once again together with fire.Then another idea named “Chinese learning for the foundation with western learning for practical use(namely learning advanced science and technology from the West but retaining the traditional political system in China)” emerged at that time.Despite the various explanations including the Westernization school's remedial theory and the Reformist school's communicative theory,this idea also failed to solve the realistic problem and even covered up the disadvantages of political system.In 1898,Emperor Guangxu issued “Mingding Guoshi Zhao(namely is an imperial edict to determine national polices of institutional reform)”,calling for “Guoshi should be rooted in the study of sages and principles,and should simultaneously acquire the western knowledge which is necessary at present.” Since then,the spreading of Western Learning for Practical Use had been expanded in the judicial system.A series of modern criminal justice systems,such as the police system and the investigation mechanism of prosecutors have been lead into and established.Therefore,the fingerprint evidence technology had since been justifiably introduced into China.Why was western fingerprint evidence technology advanced than that in modern China? China may be one of the first civilized areas in the world to apply handprints or fingerprints to the field of evidence.Judging from the existing historical data and archaeological findings around the world,China was the first country to incorporate handprints into its evidence system.Ancient Chinese literature records many methods of using handprints which were often the main evidence in the process of litigation as voucher in folk contracts.In different times of ancient China,the method of using fingerprints as voucher was also called “Zhiji”,“Xia shoushu”,“Hua zhiquan”,“Hua zhijie”,and “Shoumo”,etc.According to the literature records,this technology can be originated from the Zhou Dynasty,and had been applied to judicial cases for its evolutionary fingerprint line feature recognition and identification.This technology has a leading position in the history of human civilization and has influenced many countries.However,the knowledge and judgment of fingerprints by ancient Chinese was more empirical than scientific,and even failed to be handed down for a long time so that it never became a real kind of science.For example,in the documents of Qing Dynasty,it was said that “drawing a cross” was synonymous with “pressing fingerprints”.It was until the 19 th century that the development of natural science in the West promoted human scientific cognition of fingerprints.Hence fingerprint evidence technology evolved on the basis of modern Dermatoglyphics,Anatomy and other disciplines,and gradually formed different fingerprint classification systems such as Galton-Henry's and Vucetich's.Everyone's fingerprints are different and can remain the same for a lifetime,which enable fingerprints to be applied to the practice of evidence science.Argentina,India,Britain,France,the United States and other countries had begun to formally bring fingerprints into their own evidence systems.Under the global influence of special historical environment,the practice of fingerprint evidence technology was promoted in modern China at the same time.According to historical documents,fingerprint evidence technology had been practiced in Qingdao,Shanghai,Hong Kong and other areas since 1905 at the latest.And with the report of the North-China Daily News,the China Press and other modern newspapers and periodicals,fingerprint evidence technology had been known to the people and gradually sprouted in China.How did modern China introduce and promote the fingerprint evidence technology? A legal system without evidence science and technological support is difficult to realize its judicial value.The governments of the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China(1902-1922)followed the example of Japan and other countries in establishing modern criminal procedures,but since the subjective evidence system of torture and other convictions according to confessions was gradually abolished,those criminal procedures were in lack of evidence investigation technology,hence(1)the judicial effectiveness was extremely low;(2)the judicial officials blamed each other;and(3)even there appeared a farce of sending judicial personnel to learn hypnosis to try cases.From this the longing for the western evidence science and technology at that time can be seen.Juan Vucetich,the pioneer of fingerprint evidence technology practice and the inventor of Vucetich's fingerprint classification system,visited China to give lessons.Returned students studying abroad and the early practice of fingerprint evidence technology in the concessions were the other two causes for making this technology accessible to the rulers then.For a while,the Ministry of Justice and the Interior Ministry lead a wave of teaching and learning fingerprint evidence technology throughout the country.To introduce and promote this technology,the government set up fingerprint schools,and fingerprint major and courses in police academies.Moreover,they dispatched Hui Hong,Xia Quanyin and other people to study in concessions,and shipped students off to Japan,Austria,Germany,and the United States to learn this technology.Meanwhile,people like Xia Qin,Wu Binghu and Zhang Yuanmei made immortal contributions to the introduction and development of fingerprint evidence technology with different methods.Through the joint efforts of the government,society and individuals,fingerprint evidence technology had been implemented in China in just a few years,and had maintained almost the same level as advanced countries such as Japan,the United Kingdom and the United States.At the same time,a large number of fingerprint experts had emerged.The Ministry of Justice successively issued the Fingerprint Using Guide and the Pilot Fingerprint Technology Decree as guidebooks to fix and unify the technology,and also promote it nationwide.Police departments in Shanghai,Nanjing,Tianjin,Hankou,Peiping,Chongqing,Qingdao and other cities had successively established specialized fingerprint institutions.The application of fingerprint evidence technology had achieved great results,helping to solve many cases in various places.Which kind of fingerprint evidence technology is best for China's national conditions then? The government of the Republic of China attached particular importance to the development and application of fingerprint evidence technology.It not only encouraged and supported the promotion of this technology in the judicial field,but also applied this technology to document identification.A decree from the Ministry of Education even ordered all national universities,private colleges,and provincial education departments to set fingerprint subjects depending on their own conditions.The political environment of national division and weak decree provided the opportunity to practice different fingerprint evidence technologies in different places.However,it also brought major obstacles to play the role of this technology and achieve cooperation in cross-regional crime investigation.At that time,the fingerprint evidence technology was completely geographically different,and the technical standards applied by prison departments and police departments in the same province or city were also varied.According to the historical documents in 1935,among the 19 police departments that provided fingerprint processing,the fingerprint technical standards used included British Henry's system(which can be divided into British type and Xia Quanyin's type),German Hamburg's system(which can also be divided into German type and Japanese type),French Edmondbayle's system,Argentine Vucetich's system and Chinese system,etc.Through the analysis of the preliminary(basic)steps,the second(subsidiary)steps and the third(sub-subsidiary)steps of different fingerprint analysis systems,it is found that the Vucetich's system is the simplest because there are only four categories of basic analysis steps(which may be too simple).However,the Vucetich's system cannot cope with large number of fingerprint samples.And that is why it has 16 kinds of subsidiary analysis steps(which may be too complex).The Hamburg's system and Henry's system are basically the same in fingerprint classification,but there is a difference in the definition of bucket shape texture.The Vucetich's system is the simplest in terms of coding technology,but at least five numbers must be found each time,while the first step of Henry's system is only to determine whether to count or not.If continues into the second step,the Vucetich's system need 25 numbers,while the Henry's system need only about four numbers.In comparison,Hamburg's system is also very simple and requires only Arabic numerals,but it is not much different from the Henry's system in essence.It is also found that the Chinese system does not localize fingerprint technology according to the characteristics of Chinese people,but instead integrates Henry's with Edmondbayle's,which causes many mistakes.In 1933,the government of the Republic of China started the unification of standards for fingerprint evidence technology.It recognized and decided to establish those standards based on the characteristics of Chinese fingerprints.Nevertheless,the technical divergences and controversies far exceed the technical discussion itself.Behind those was the struggle between the teachers and students,as well as the intertwined forces from various academic backgrounds.After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War,the Interior Ministry ordered the police departments to adopt the Henry's system as their standard,without reaching an agreement with the Ministry of Justice.By 1949,the technical standards of fingerprint evidence had not been substantially unified.Based on the introduction,development and divergence of fingerprint evidence technology in modern China,what problems can be reflected on and what lessons can be learned from? From the discussion above,it can be told that the introduction and promotion of fingerprint evidence technology in modern China from 1905 to 1949 is international but uncritical,repetitive and non-independent.The limitation of the interpretation of “western learning” in chapter one can also be viewed as a cause for the introduction with unexplained origin,the development with no consideration of reality,and the disputes with no settlements for the fingerprint evidence technology.At the same time,political needs,subject education,professional groups and the role of individuals all have different effects on the introduction,development and divergence of this technology.The unfinished roads in the Republic of China also bring some inspiration for now.For example,(1)the fingerprint identification standards should be unified as early as possible,and should depend on the characteristics of Chinese fingerprints;and(2)the unification should be established by the committee of experts jointly organized by the Ministry of Justice,the Ministry of Public Security,the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court.In addition,as far as the pros and cons of both academic education and on-the-job training in the process of popularizing fingerprint evidence technology are concerned,how to look at them also has certain referential significance on nowadays police education or other vocational education.Short-term on-the-job training can meet the needs of technology and knowledge acquisition with not only quick results but also low cost.And it can quickly adapt to social development and reform.However,it can never solve the problems of technology and knowledge research and development.Then does academic education solve those problems? It may deserve more consideration.By studying the divergence and disputes in the technical standards of fingerprint evidence,not only the change of the relationship between prosecution and police as well as the expansion and alienation of investigative powers during the Republic of China period can be witnessed,but also the relationship between science and justice can be explored.Moreover,the study can provide some ideas for the establishment of fingerprint identification standards and acceptance rules,the development of evidence science and evidence law,and the exploration of the right to speak with Chinese characteristics in the judicial reform. |
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