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The Study On The Official's Duty Crime Of The Ming Dynasty

Posted on:2006-12-19Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:S L ChenFull Text:PDF
GTID:2166360155453922Subject:Law
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The feature of ancient China was that the country was only ruled by the dominators, which was decided by the political system of feudal autocracy. The quality of the dominators could decide the fate of the country and the society. And the core of the domination lied in the officials. The officials had the special status in the feudal society. They represented the monarch and performed the governmental functions in order to ensure the efficient operation of the social political system. In fact, they were the ruling medium of the dominators. So, we can say that the first point of domination was the control of the officials. The ancients said that the wise monarch first controlled the officials but not the common people. The feudal system required all the officials to be loyal to their monarch and to be diligent in performing their functions in order to maintain the operation of the state machinery and the stability of the social order. The monarchs of the ancient China all made the specific provisions about the control of the officials in order to ensure the officials exercising their functions effectively. Among these provisions, the legal system about the official's duty crime was the main content of the ancient management of the official, also it was the important component of the ancient criminal law. As the important form of later stage of feudal society, the Ming Dynasty had made more concrete and perfect legal provisions than the past dynasties. There was much experience that we could use for reference today. This paper includes four chapters that analyze and comment on the legal system and the legal performance of the official's duty crime in the Ming Dynasty. Chapter one is about the overview of the official's duty crime in the Ming Dynasty. At first I define the range of the word official, and analyze the definitions of the official's crime and the ancient official's duty crime. Then I summarize the basic legal provisions about the official's crime of the Ming Dynasty, which includes the provisions of official's public crime and private crime, the identification and the range of the officials. After that I divide the official's duty crime of the Ming Dynasty into two sorts, they are the crime of corruption and the crime of malfeasance. The summary of the crime of corruption is mainly based on the content of the specific chapter of The Law of the Ming Dynasty and the special legal provisions. As for the crime of malfeasance, the paper enumerates several main varieties of regulations, which include the crimes of the official's personnel placement, the official's functions, the archives and official seals, the dereliction and malfeasance of officers. According to these content, we can know that the law of the Ming Dynasty contained exhaustive and concrete regulations about the official's duty crime, in order to strengthen the management and punishment to the officials, and to bring all their behaviors into the tight control of the law. Chapter two is about the proceedings and legal responsibility system of the official's crime in the Ming Dynasty. This part mainly expounds the special points of the proceedings to the officials in the Ming Dynasty and their legal responsibility system. The special proceedings to the officials included three parts, they were the accusation and the impeachment, the procedure of asking for instructions during the process of trial, the sentence and the execution. There were two kinds of ways of starting the proceedings to the officials, one was the accusation, and the other was the impeachment. The supervisors could impeach other officials' crime, and they could impeach each other too. Asking for instructions was the necessary procedure during the trial. The monarchs themselves decided whether to start the inquisition or whether to punish. The legal provisions of the Ming Dynasty on asking for instructions were different between the officials and the officers. In addition, the monarchs occupied the leading position in the process of sentence and execution, and they could make the final decisions. The official's legal responsibility system of the MingDynasty was perfect. According to its different forms, we can divide the system into three types: the criminal responsibility, the administrative responsibility, and the economic compensation. These three forms of responsibilities formed the official's legal responsibility system of the Ming Dynasty together, which strengthened the control and management of the officials. Chapter three is about the precautionary measures against the official's duty crime of the Ming Dynasty. The monarchs of the Ming Dynasty carried out a series of precautionary measures in order to strengthen the supervision and management to officials and avoid their duty crimes. This chapter is described from four aspects. First, valuing the moral characters while selecting officials in order to choose those with moral integrity to ensure the normal operation of the state machinery. Second, implementing the official's withdrawal system in certain range and certain degree, in order to prevent the officials from abusing their authority and bending the law for the benefit of relatives or friends. The withdrawal system included three aspects : withdrawal from their relatives, their regions and their posts. Third, examining the officials through assessing and investigating by two systems of officials and officers. They usually examined the characters and achievements of the officials, then rewarded the diligent and honest, punished the lazy and corrupt, in order to achieve the purpose of controlling the officials and preventing their crimes. Fourth, operating the supervisory system on officials. The supervisory system of the Ming Dynasty was crisscross and perfect day by day, and exceeding that of other dynasties. All the supervisory institutes and supervisors performed their own functions and supervised each other, so that all the officials, including the supervisors themselves, were put under the tight supervision of the system, which played indispensable role in dealing with the official's crime and the control of officials in certain period. The content of chapter four is about the legal performance of punishingthe official's duty crime in the Ming Dynasty. At first, I describe separately the judicial practice of the official's crime of corruption and malfeasance in both earlier and later periods of the Ming Dynasty. In the initial stage of the Ming Dynasty, the principle of punishing the corrupt through severe punishment was carried out in the judicial practice, and the harsh and severe regulations were applied to the officials of corruption, which kept the officials more pure in the earlier period, and extended for many years. However, by the middle and later periods, the regulation about corruption was lax gradually, the official's crime of corruption increased, and the punishment to them was greatly lightened. As to the judicial practice on the crime of malfeasance, the punishment on the officials was usually remissive, which was much lighter than that on the crime of corruption. By the middle and later periods, the official's crime of malfeasance became more serious. Though the monarchs took a series of new measures during the reigns of Jiajing and Wanli, it only functioned for the moment. Later, the political ethos of the Ming Dynasty declined day by day and became unmanageable finally. In the last part of the paper, I expound the hindrances existing in the Ming Dynasty during the practice of punishing the official's crime. First, the officials enjoyed certain privilege, which prevented the harsh regulations and severe punishments from carrying out in some cases. Then, the imperial power was unlimited and over-supervising in the Ming Dynasty, which could be placed above law. The performance of law was finally determined by the monarch' desire, which caused the formation of corruption to some extent. In addition, the salary of the officials was too low in the Ming Dynasty, which also encouraged the official's criminal offence. The salary of the officials was not enough to pay their daily expenses, so that the corruption and accepting bribes became unavoidably. From then on, the corruption of the management of officials in the Ming Dynasty spread. Therefore, though the government of the Ming Dynasty had established the complete and perfect system to prevent the official's duty crime, and...
Keywords/Search Tags:Official's
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