Qing Penalty Decisions Not As Good As The Law Decrees Dynasty

"To Convict and Punish illegitimately"is one of the composing articles of the criminal codes of the Qing Imperial Code, which mainly was used to restrict officials in trials. In the traditional society, people are creators as well as destroyers of the political system. Therefore, the practical functioning of the law would be different when it was executed by different officials, which was the case with the article of"To Convict and Punish Illegitimately"mainly to punish officials. In one hand, the article must keep social order and improve legitimate function; in the other hand, it would be enforced according to the need of the ruling class.The article includes two parts:"to punish people illegitimately"and"to beat illegitimately". The former is about the legal responsibility of officials when executing lashing and flogging, while the latter is to do with the legal responsibility of them when interrogating with the aid of harsh torture and abusing powers. These two parts both are reasonable, independent and valuable in a certain extent but not complete at the same time because of the avoidance of officials and social systems of the day. The paper analyses the development of the article, interpret its meaning and categorizes relative cases, in order to evaluate the function and value of the article of"To Convict and Punish Illegitimately"in the Qing legal practice.