On The Essence Of A Matter As Legal Source

The legal source is an old and new topic. The theory on legal sources in traditional legislative perspective makes limited contributions to research on legal methods, but legal sources in judicial perspective involve judges searching for the general margin of laws in order to give a sound judgment, thus having significance of methodology with combination with legal finding. Legal sources in judicial perspective differ from the manifestation of laws since the former has a wider extent. In such perspective, essence of a matter is also one of legal sources and can be a theoretical source for a judge's judgment.Western scholars pay much attention to the theory of essence of a matter, which considers that essence of a matter is the internal regulation on relations between matters, is also the basis on which laws exist, involves appraisal of matters and reflects the essence of people at last. The external reason that essence of matters can be one of legal sources is that statutory law has unavoidable defects and that the principle that a judge can't refuse to give a judgment to a case is adapted. And its internal reason is that essence of a matter is a kind of inherent quality in judicial proceedings.Regarding essence of a matter as one of legal sources has great theoretical significance and practical significance: it broadens extents of legal sources, meets the trends of theories on legal sources and can prevent a judge from abusing the power of free judgment, thus fulfilling equity and justice in a case.As people's recognition of the internal quality of a matter, essence of a matter reflects the internal connections and laws of matters. Therefore, it is the basis on which statutory law, case law, custom, folk rules, public order and excellent social custom as well as laws formulated by judges exist. Essence of a matter is a supplement to authoritative legal sources, that is, when authoritative legal sources exist, essence of a matter doesn't work freely and when authoritative legal sources is insufficient for offering judgment basis, essence of a matter can be used for judging.It needs the following conditions for a judge to use essence of a matter for judging: the judicial ideas of activity, value judgment stress legal methods, improvement of judges' overall quality and establishment of the system of reasoning. Only by this way can essence of a matter play its full role and it can be guaranteed not to be misused, thus settling disputes properly and fulfilling justice in a case.There are many examples in which essence of a matter is used to settle disputes. But in China, people don't recognize it due to their unfamiliarity with the concept. The last chapter gives examples in which essence of a matter is used to judge cases in order to demonstrate that as time goes on, when people understand and accept the concept, essence of a matter can be used to give judges with no need to use other expressions indirectly and tediously expressing the same meanings.