Wu Ting-fang Of Legal Thought

Wu TingFang is one of the representatives of knowing western bourgeois legal system as well as a leading person in reforming Chinese feudalism legal system on Chinese modem history. During that period when he holds the post of revising Chinese traditional legal system with Shen JiaBen,he had participated the job in drafting the new criminal law and the first lawsuit law draft in Qing Dynasty in Chinese history, which is a milestone in Chinese legislation history in Qing Dynasty.Wu TingFang has accepted western education systematically during his school days, and studied systematically on western legal roles in United Kingdom. After return to HongKong,he had been engaged in the field of legal practice as a lawyer. Wu TingFang was free from the effects of traditional Chinese feudalism legal roles, As a politician in Qing Dynasty for thirty years, he strongly advocated overthrowing old legal roles completely in order to building up bourgeoisie legal system. The cause for this are manifolds;, but the main factor is due to the social reality in late Qing Dynasty. The text tries to analyse his legal thoughts on the basis of historical background. During that time, the society is changing dramatically, westem legal thought entered China, a large number of scholars and landlord class as well as enlightened person began to study western law, as a result, Wu TingFang's legal thoughts have been affected by this. Other factors were also affected Wu TingFang's legal thoughts, especially consul jurisdiction and jurisdiction sovereign right were trampled by western countries. Generally speaking, WuTingfang's legal thoughts is more voluable than his legal practice, the essence of his legal thoughts was embodied in the process of revising the traditional Chinese legal system in late Qing dynasty.On the basis of summing up WuTingFang's legal thoughts, The text also analyse and comment the historical role on his legal thoughts. Wu TingFang had studied andworked in Europe and America for long times, because of this, his legal thougths is a leading one in establishing new legal system both in the late Qing dynasty as well as the Early Years of the Republic of China, which have made great contributions to legal science due to inauguration of his legal thoughts ,but his legal thoughts has historical limitations, In the process of studying and transplanting legal rules from Europe and America, certain legal rules can't match china's actual conditions of that time. Analysing WuTingFang's legal thoughts historically and objectively can also benefit the construction of current legal rules.