The Modern Consciousness Of Shen Jiaben’s Jurisprudence Thoughts

Shen Jiaben is a famous jurist in modern China, as the key figure in the reformof legality at the end of Qing Dynasty, he not only criticized and summarized thetraditional legal culture of China,but also absorbed and referenced the western legalby referring to the ancient and modern and transfixing of Chinese and western. He isso important that we can’t regard him when we talking about the development oflegal system of China. This paper set to study Shen Jiaben’s the legal thought basedof his theory of Jurisprudence.There are four parts of this paper, every part is written according to the train ofthought that, the debate between the legal reform, the attitude and practice of ShenJiaben, and an interpretation of Shen Jiaben’s legal thoughts.The first part is mainly talking about his view of The legislative and judicial.The aim of his activity was to take back the exterritorial jurisdiction at firstly, but hedid more. After translating and studying the laws of western proverbially, heconfirmed two aspects of good law, which included making the deterministic andexact law, at the same time, updating the law when the society has changed. Hisjudicial view was affected by separation of the three powers. He worked hard torealize the independence of judicature, which is the great contribution he has done toChina’s judicial. It also reflected his understanding of traditional system, especiallyto the unity of Judicial and administrative. In second part, it discussed his concept of human rights. Human rights are theimportant content of rule of law, which was expressed on his comprehension ofpersonal right and the principle of humanitarianism of punishment. Shen Jiabenintroduced these advanced concepts into traditional law system from the perspectiveof benevolence policy, which was the result of his study of western laws.The third part focuses on his understanding of ethic and law. The debatebetween the ethic faction the law faction is the important thing happened in theamendment of law.Shen Jiaben’s thought was clearer and more definite in this procedure. Hechanged the traditional value of law depending on his study of western laws. Thelaw faction led by him pulled the new conception in the new criminal law, andconfirmed the direction of its development. Although the new law was published asa form of regressing to ethic, it still ensured the foundation of the development oflaw.The last part summarized the formation of his modern consciousness, which ishis response to the impact from the West. Shen Jiaben cognized the deficiency oftraditional law objectively. He made great effort to annotate the role of“matchmaker” by transfixing Chinese and western. There will be a compare of sometheories of the transition of modern China’s laws. And it will give an analysis ofShen Jiaben’s thought and the transition of modern China.