Research On Ancient Concealment And Modern Legislation Of Concealment System

Concealment known as "concealment between relatives" means that in a certainrange, crimes should be concealed between relatives. Relatives cannot impeach orexpose each other’s crimes, or they will be punished by law. It is commonly believedthat concealment is a peculiarity of Chinese feudal patriarchism, a representation offamily departmentalism of Chinese traditional legal system, garbage of feudalism anda barrier of democracy and monocracy. The author considers that those are thepeople’s mistakes formed for a long time. But the objective fact is not like that.Concealment system is not only a significant legal system of human society, but alsoan ethical principle pursued by people for thousands of years. Concealment is acommon tradition both at home and abroad. The Continental Law System, theCommon Law System, and the Socialist Legal System all have regulations onconcealment system, no matter in the past or at present. Concealment betweenrelatives has profound social basis and centuries-old history. But the concealmentsystem is abandoned after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China forcomplicated reasons.On the surface, concealment between relatives is adverse to crackdown ofoffence in time and interests of judicial and social justice. But from the view oftraditional ethics, concealment can protect the domestic affection and maintain thestability of a family. It shows attention to virtuous human nature. The concealmentsystem is a product of sentiment, reason and law. Concealment has profound reasonof politics, economy and humanism to exist. The deletion of this system which canprotect the domestic affection and maintain domestic morality in recent times arousesour thoughts.The author makes introspection on the vacancy of concealment system in themodern legislation. The thesis summarizes the laws of development of concealmenton the basis of an overview of the two thousand years history of concealment system and its periodical characteristics. The ancient concept of concealment dates from theSpring and Autumn Period. The system is firstly regulated by law in Qin Dynasty,taking shape in Han Dynasty, mature in Tang Dynasty, perfected in Song, Yuan, Ming,Qing Dynasty, and decayed after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.As same as the other legal system, concealment system has its formative background.The author analyzes the formative reason of concealment from the aspects of politics,economy and culture. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, weshould analyze the reason of the deletion in order to remove the barriers for therecurrence of the system. A two-thousand-year old system inevitably has its legalityand rationality. Then the author expounds the necessity and the validity of therecurrence of concealment system. The former refers to the needs in reality of thesystem; the latter refers to the theoretic basis of the recurrence of the system. The lastsection of the thesis is related to concrete legislative suggestions on reconstruction ofconcealment system in the Criminal Law, including the contents of substantive lawand procedure law.The author attempts to find out the reasons of the occurrence, the developmentand the extinction of concealment system through the analysis of the two thousandyears long history of concealment. Then the concrete legislative suggestions of therecurrence of concealment system are given with the ancient relative provisions andthe current social situation in order to define concealment felicitously in criminallegislation. We can learn from the ancient concealment by a comprehensive analysison it instead of imitating it rigidly, and then find out the benefits for our modernsociety. To reconstruct concealment system accords with the requirement of buildinga harmonious society, the primary needs of human beings, and the spirit of modernmonocracy. It contributes to respect and assurance of human rights of a nation.