Confucian Law Dispute, From The Han And Tang Trial Practice

"The Dispute between Confucianism and Legalists" is a very important proposition in the academic history of law. However, no matter the sect advocating the Law Confucianization or the sect advocating Code Legalization, both of their theories can be continuously challenged and improved. The sect of the Law Confucianization in fact holds the view that the Codes are confucianized, while there are some problems in the proposal of Code Legalization itself. Even more, the dialogue in a real sense between the two sects hasn't been formed.Therefore, based on the carding and review of the academic history, the paper has selected Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, the most representative, as the background of the investigation, taking upright officials and ruthless officials as the objects of the investigation, and the legal concept of Confucianists and Legalists as the evaluation standard. The paper analyses this problem from the perspective of judicial practice, with the purpose of introducing new viewing angles and thoughts of the Dispute between Confucianism and Law and promoting the research on this topic. Through comparison, the paper points out that, during Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, from the perspective of national statute law, the Confucianists' ideas on law indeed occupied the orthodox position, but at the same time, in the aspect of the trial, the Legalists' ideas were gradually accepted by the ruling stratum, and thus widely adopted. In fact, it is not completely opposite and there is no absolute conflict between the opinion of Confucianists and Legalists. To some extent, they could be strengthened from different levels with the passage of time and the transition of the dynasties.The judgment on the feature of the Chinese legal system can not find its answer straightly from the description of the Law Code. The condition of the trial needs more attention and emphasis.