The Analysis Of Ancient Chinese Torture System

Folter origins from the Western Zhou and eventually began to be institutionalized from the Qin dynasty and after several dynasties'development it came to be complete in Tang dynasty. So its existence and development has a certain degree of inevitability. Along with the progress of history as well as the civilization, folter has receded from the stage of history, yet the phenomenons of torture and forced confession still arise from the modern judicial practice. This article explores the whole evolution process from the origin of the ancient folter system to its completeness and investigates the folter system's operational state in the ancient judicial practice. At the same time, it elaborates the characteristics and functions, etc of the ancient folter system in order to evaluate it objectively and face the historical inevitability of its existence so that we can have the clearer understanding of the emergence of the folter and that of the reasons of its long-term existence so as to find out the practical way to put an end to the torture and force confession.In the beginning of this article, it studies the origin of the ancient torture system, elaborates the necessary connection between the indecision of the God sentences and the appearance of the torture phenomenon so as to show that the torture is not the ancestors'accidental invention but a forced choice made to gain the facts of the case after the adjudication method changed from the God sentence to the secular trial. Then the article explores the developing situation of the ancient torture system by checking the dynasties'provisions on the torture to prove that the ancient torture system eventually gets complete according to the concept of limit. In the Tang dynasty, it has been very complete; it didn't only set the objects, methods, times of the torture, but also made sure the responsibility of the officials'illegal torture. Then the article analyzes the cases about torture system in the historical materials, inspects its judicial practices and uncovers the actual operating conditions of the ancient torture system. It thinks that the unjust cases in the ancient China were not caused by the official's legal tortures; instead, it was because of the violation of the implementation act.Later, on the basis of the first half statement, the article concludes the characteristics and functions of the ancient torture system. Under the influence of the cautious punishment, the ancient torture system has three main characteristics. So, when the case has come to a standstill, and under the pressure of the assessment indicators like the handling time and detection rate, the judicial officers are very easy to pick up this old torture method---the torture system, and this is the reason why the torture in the modern society can not be prohibited.