| The serious loss of public credibility of the judiciary and the deep crisis of belief in the rule of law has become an inevitable legal dilemma in China currently. The rule of law in western countries is rooted in a relatively harmonious and trustful relationship between judge and the public of legal profession interior. In stark contrast to this, the rule of law practice in contemporary China has been always subject to a nervous and mutually distrustful relation between the legal profession and the general public. Based on the description of traditional judicial officer in Fine Officials and Cruel Officials, some of its judicial cases are used in the paper. The paper mainly focuses on analyzing the public’s expectation before case prosecution and acceptability after trial of case, which intends to describe the two-way interaction between ancient judge and the public. Hence, it attempts to get rid of two mistakes: simply equate the relationship between the ancient Chinese judges and the public with "officer-public relation", and research judge-public relation purely from the perspective of subjectivity theory of "judge professionalization and democratization". The relation between judges and the public in ancient China is characterized with an obvious polarization, namely the difference between "case decision by Qingtian" and "case decision by cruel officers" due to personal qualities of judicial officers. The paper further points out that it is the value unity of the judges and the public that brings to this difference. In the end, its modern value and positive significance are explored by presenting the relation between traditional judicial judges and the public, while its negative effects and the weakness are avoided. Furthermore, under the present special context of Chinese transition, and combined with contemporary China’s specific national condition and social reality, some useful local resources are provided for the contemporary judicial reform in China. |
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