The Modernization Of Concealment System In The Criminal Field Of China

Concealment system, which was also called "mutual concealment of offensesamong the kin", is a very important legal system in the history of China. It means thatit’s forbidden to reporting the relatives’ crimes to the judicial authorities, otherwise,the one who is insist on reporting will be punished by criminal laws. Concealmentsystem, combined laws, moral principles with humanity, maintains the authority ofthe governing class, at the same time, demonstrates contained value of criminal lawson respecting for humanity and compassionating family love.Concealment system took shape in Western Zhou dynasty, and initially legally inQin dynasty. One emperor of Han officially confirmed the legality of concealmentsystem at B.C.66. Tang dynasty improved the content of concealment system, andamplify the scope of it till the end of Qing dynasty. While after First Opium War,China was impacted by the Western culture, and concealment system was consideredas the dross of the traditional law culture, then disappeared in the river of history.Since the Reform and Open, China made great jural achievement. China began tolearn the Western law, at the same time, reconsidered the traditional law culture, thenthought deeply and drew lessons from concealment system prevailing in ancientChina, combined with current condition of our country. At last, the legislators drewup a few humanistic laws, which demonstrated that the ancient traditional laws didcome back in the current criminal field of China. For example, after the CriminalLaw’s revision at1997, the supreme court of China issued judicial interpretationabout the applicable advice of robbery and theft in Criminal Law. The light robberyand theft between family members was generally not convicted and punished as crime,which no doubt granted concealment rights between family members. While the mostrepresentative regulation should be the provisions of article188th in new CriminalProcedure Law, which gave a range of close relatives the right against being forced totestify in the court, and let us saw the hope that concealment system would fully comeback in current criminal field, and it was also one of the highlights and breakthroughs in this revision of Criminal Procedure Law.In spite of this, there are a lot of differences between the concealment system thecurrent criminal field of our country and the ancient concealment system, the subjectand behavior are not so widely as the ancient concealment system. Unlike the ancientsystem, the current legislation is rough. But the purpose of the two systems are thesame, namely compassionating family love and caring humanity.As we all know, there are only a few regulations about concealment system inChinese current criminal field owing to lacking of deeply research of the ancientconcealment system. The regulations are too scattered to reflect the purpose ofconcealment system.Considering that, the article begins with the content of the prevailing ancientconcealment system, then arranges carefully its evolution in the history of China, sothat sums up the trend of development, and states amply the ancient and thecontemporary value of concealment system. Then the article lists the regulations andthe defect about concealment system. In the end the article makes some suggestionson the substantial and adjective aspect of mending the current criminal laws, and hopethat there are more compassionate laws in criminal field as soon as possible.