A Study On The Judge Liability System In Ancient China

The judge liability system in ancient China, is one of the core contents in ancient Chinese feodal administrative management systems, is the important part of ancient Chinese lawsuit law and administrative law, its establishment and development reflect the highly developed social and jural civilization in ancient China, it is a major feature of the legal history of ancient China, and also it highlights the essence of ancient Chinese legal culture. In the study of the thesis, the judge liability system in ancient China is based on penal code of each dynasty in the Twenty-Four Histories, representative ancient code, and relative archeological findings. More over, former scholar's study and views are properly used as a source of reference. Theme of the subject takes the judge liability system in ancient China as a fundamental point, and uses the essence of the judge liability system in ancient China, to build and perfect modern judge liability system. This thesis studies from mainly five aspects, which are the history of the judge liability system in ancient China, the main contents, fundamental features, fundaments of thoughts and practical utilization. This thesis is divided into 4 parts: the history of the judge liability system in ancient China, the main contents of the judge liability system in ancient China, main features and fundaments of thinking of the judge liability system in ancient China and practical utilization of the judge liability system in ancient China.Part-1, the historical development of the judge liability system in ancient China. The judge liability system in ancient China was established in the pre-Qin period, was instituted in Qin and Han period, was fixed in the Sui and Tang period, was developed in Song and Yuan period, and was completed in Ming and Qing period. This part mainly describes the development process and the main content of China judge liability system in the five periods.Firstly, the period of creating. Judge liability system comes into being with the emergency of countries and laws, and prototype of it was found in the law in Xia period, relative codes of Xia period were inherited and reinforced in Shang period. In the Western Zhou period, judge liability system already had its particular regulation, and till the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Periods, judge liability system by inheriting that of Western Zhou period became more and more strict and formal.Secondly, the period of establishment. Qin was a staunch practitioner of Legalist thought. And Legalists is a school proposes that country should use the law, the penalty as the basic political method and way of ruling a country. In judge liability system, Qin proposes for the first time in history to take subjective mental attitude to distinguish judicial accountability, for the first time used judge liability system, and inherited by the future generations. Han period inherited the system of Qin period, and strictly regulate judge liability and adopted Huan Shen Gu Zhi Zui, Ji Zong Chu Zhi Zhu as a principle in accountability, i.e. the penalty of Gu Ru Ren Zui often is lighter than the penalty of Zong Chu Zui. Furthermore, another notable feature of judge liability system of Han period is to severely punish corrupt persons.Thirdly, the period of fixation. From Wei and Jin period to Sui period, judge liability system of each period was inherited and developed, Judicial accountability was usually provided in Law on Trial and Imprisonment, and these regulations about judge liability system were gradually stereotyped, systemized, and Standardized. Tang Lv Shu Yi, which was issued in AD 653 in Tang period, is the most complete statute code of China till now. It integrates the experiences of all dynasties. In it, the rules about judge liability system are perfect and detailed, which became the mark of the settlement of the continuous development and change of the judge liability system. Every dynasty after Tang made only little change based on it and no major breakthrough were accomplished. So judge liability system of Tang period is the representative of the judge liability system in ancient China.Fourthly, the period of development. Judge liability system in Song period is almost an imitation of the system of Tang period, with a slight difference. Judges who take misdemeanors for high crimes should take more responsibilities than the ones who take high crimes for misdemeanors in settling law suits. In judicial system, they adopt the System of Ju Yan Fen Si, that is, instance and sentence are processed separately, officials who take charge in sentencing do not have the authority to interfere instance, and officials who take charge in instance do not have the authority to interfere sentencing. The two departments do their business independently, and they are not permitted to communicate with each other about their works and discuss their cases. Furthermore, a reexamination system named Fan Yi Bie Kan was established in Song dynasty to strengthen the supervision over judicial officials. Regulations for judge liability system also developed in Yuan dynasty.Fifthly, the period of maturity. Judge liability system is more mature and severe in Ming and Qing period than in Tang period, and the most notable system is the responsibility for judicial officials to make court verdict or record and the responsibility of distinguishing injustice. Judge liability system of Qing dynasty is an inheritance perfection of judge liability systems of the past dynasties. Judge liability system, and there are severe restrains and responsibility requirements for each link related to litigation and judgment.Part-2, the main contents of the judge liability system in ancient China. The main contents of the judge liability system in ancient China are plenty and various, covers a particularly wide range. It almost covered every aspect of lawsuit. The history of the criminal procedure law of ancient China is virtually a development history related to judge liability system. The judge liability system in ancient China could be divided into three major contents by the general categorization according to the procedure of judgment of judicial cases.Firstly, types of responsibility of judges in putting on record phase. There are mainly five types of responsibilities of judges in putting on record phase, such as responsibilities for illegally handling, illegally arresting, illegally detaining, illegally ruling and violation of the rule of avoidance.Secondly, types of judge responsibilities during the phase of judging. There are mainly eight judge responsibilities during the phase of judging, such as responsibility of violence of judge according to evidence, illegal examination, violence of interrogation in person, illegal inquisition by torture, illegal asking for additional penalty to criminals, illegal judge, and illegally taking high crimes for misdemeanors and taking misdemeanors for high crimes, and officials of the same position undertaking the same responsibility.Thirdly, judicial judges responsibilities in sentence and executive phases. There are mainly three types of judicial judge responsibilities in sentence and executive phases; they are responsibilities for illegal sentence, illegal hung jury, and illegal execution. It is important to know that responsibility for hung juries do not merely appear in executive phase, but also in judge phase.Part-3, the basic features and ideological foundation of the judge liability system in ancient China. Judge liability system of China is a reflection of China's highly developed ancient social civilization and law civilization, it highlights the cultural essence of China's ancient law culture, and it is the main ideological reflection in China's ancient social law culture.Firstly, the basic features of the judge liability system in ancient China. The judge liability system in ancient China has the following basic features, the first is its high level of institutionalization, the second is its strict and focused system, the third is its diversity and strictness and using mainly penalty, the forth is its co-existence of science-base and non-scientific-base, the fifth is the divergence of practice and system. Secondly, the ideological foundation of the judge liability system in ancient China. Any system is realization and coagulation of certain ideas, the judge liability system in ancient China reflects four main aspects of ancient China social law culture, that is idea of human nature view, sage political idea, justice just and Xi Su idea.Part-4, political utilization of the judge liability system in ancient China. The judge liability system in ancient China has a long history and also a profundity for its variety, and it provides plenty basis for us to know the issue of judicial responsibilities from a historical and developing perspective. It provides a beneficial reference for us to build and perfect present judicial responsibility in socialism with Chinese characteristics. This article analyses from three aspects the affection of the judge liability system in ancient China to the build of contemporary judge liability system.Firstly, mature experiments in the judge liability system in ancient China. Through thousands of years of practical use, judge liability system in ancient China has showed that it can play a role of counterbalancing in running state apparatus. It to some extend has tangibly strengthened the restraint to judicial officials, and it advanced the improvement of administration of officials and the improvement of public order, and it powerfully protected the strictness of law, and it provided a good environment for federal economy to develop. The value of the judge liability system in ancient China is reflected in the following four aspects: the first is its supportive rule in feudal operation; the second is it is a balancing regulator of people mentality; the third is that it announced the spirit of federal law, and to some extend realized society harmony; the forth is it restraints abuse of lawsuit mechanism power, and protects federal law order and security. Ancient judge liability system existed in China for more than 3000 years, and it contains the essence of wisdom of our ancestors, and lots of special techniques are worthy our practical use now. Concretely speaking, the relatively mature experience contains: rulers of each dynasties of ancient China emphasize on the building of judge liability system, with a strong and consistent attitude. Effective punishment principle and system were established for all kinds of judge; it treats administration of officials in which official punishment were contained as a whole project of social law building. To integrate civilization, legislation, administrative supervising and other means to rule. And it is especially important that each dynast has accomplished obvious effects in administering judge responsibilities and in administration of judge responsibility, it centers on severe punishment of judge crime by taking advantage of duty, and also gives consideration to the means of both education and punishment, it is worthy our learning and using.Secondly, historical limitations of the judge liability system in ancient China. While the judge liability system in ancient China has its positive social value, due to the condition of the time and the restraints of class nature, this system brings inevitably some historical limitations, obviously reflected in that it is under the control of federal autocratic imperial power and it's fundamental purpose is to ensure the federal country's regime, at the same time, it publicly protects privilege of federal hierarchy system and patriarchal and clan power. More specifically, it is reflected in the five aspects: the first, it reflects imperial power centered dictatorial system; the second, it reflects privilege system of federal bureaucracy; the third, it is limited by ancient social environment; the forth, the system itself has limitations; the fifth, this system relies on ancient code which have tendency of idealization.Thirdly, a reflection made for building and perfecting judge liability system in modern times. The judge liability system in ancient China gives a merit reference on building and perfecting our judicial responsibility system with socialism with Chinese characteristics. For example, use legislation of judge liability system as a reference to realize legalization of judicial responsibility system in our country as soon as possible. And summarize the China's ancient development discipline of judge liability system to gradually build and elaborate our judicial responsibility system; reflect on the executive of ancient judge liability system, and emphasize on and strengthen the practice link of our judicial responsibility system. The four aspects of carrying on building and perfecting judge liability system in modern times based on merits of reference of the judge liability system in ancient China are: the first, to strengthen and perfect legislation of judge responsibility; the second, to emphasize on and strengthen the practical use of judge liability system; the third, to improve supervisory mechanism of law and strengthen the function of justice against corruption; the forth, the perfection for relative measures.