Chinese Precedent System Study

Since old times our country had the tradition of looking for the legal precedent in the judicial practice. The judicial precedent system of the Qing dynasty is the most typical legal precedent system in the Chinese history. The legal precedent system was prosperous in the Qing Dynasty. Only because nearly China received the thought of western rationalism legislation, the legal precedent was more and more neglected. Now, some countries of the Continental legal system have acknowledged the legal precedent in the certain degree, but China continuously follows the written law tradition. The consciousness of legal precedent is simply and the culture of legal precedent is deficient. It may be called the present situation in Chinese judicature trial. Objectively speaking, the loss of legal precedent actually is the biggest waste of judicial resources. In this kind of situation, accelerating the research of the legal precedent in our country, as well as constructing the brand-new legal precedent system appears more and more urgent.