A Study On The Early Reform Faction's Law Thoughts

The early reform faction is the first group of intellectuals with elementary bourgeoisie consciousness in modern China who emerged with the national capitalist economy in 1870s. As the representatives of new production force, they had a clearer understanding of the political situation than the westernization faction, which resulted in their separation from the foreign affairs camp and they also became the representatives of early bourgeoisie reform thoughts.The legal thoughts of the early reform faction were displayed mainly in theirs democratic ideas, protecting business by law, public law as well as judicial improvement, and the criticism on the traditional legal system and the introduction of western advanced legal culture were permeated through theirs legal thoughts. Therefore, the study on their legal thoughts can not only reflect the overall characters of their thoughts from a certain perspective but also learn their contributions to introduction and promotion of western legal culture. To sum up, their legal thoughts is the product of the combination of Chinese and western legal cultures and the assimilation of their traditional legal culture view of"ZHONGTIXIYONG"on advance western legal culture. Because of the limitations of the traditional legal culture view, their introduction and acceptance of the western legal culture was only within the sphere of law system and facilities, which were still incomplete. However, their contributions can not be neglected. Their introduction of law system and facilities had laid the foundation for the thoughts of latter reform faction and their ideas on the establishment of light punishment, attorney and jury had offered references to the legal reform of the late Qing dynasty.