The Modern Elements Of Shen Jiaben's Thought Of Criminal Law

As a legalist giant who knew well about the ancient as well as the modern, the western as well as the Chinese, Shen Jiaben was in charge of the legal reform at the end of Qing Dynasty. From the understanding of"the priority of criminal law among all laws", he took the criminal law reform as the starting point. With the aids of Japanese legal experts, he devised the first specialized criminal law -- The New Criminal Law of Qing Dynasty in modern Chinese history, and carried out the judicial and prison reform, thus promoting the historic transformation in the theory, system and contents of Chinese criminal law and judicial system, which consequently made a great achievement in the legal reform at the end of Qing Dynasty. All these were attributed to and also embodied his modern thought of criminal law. By taking the original texts as the basis, and taking reference to the present studies of the academic research circle, this paper gives a systematical study to Shen Jiaben's thought of criminal law, such as human right of criminal law, equality before criminal law, judicial independence, prison reform and so on, which combined the Chinese with western concepts.