Modernization Of The Legal System Of China: A Consideration Of The Past And The Present

From the Opium War in1840to the end of the20th century, together with the invasion ofWestern Powers, the Western legal culture had a strong impact on the Chinese traditional legalculture. At this stage, the preparatory stage of constitutional monarchy and the Amendment ofLaws during the late stage of Qing Dynasty marked the beginning of modernization of theChinese legal system, and started the legal modernization in China. After the Revolution in1911, legal modernization witnessed a preliminary probe during the Republic era of China.Since the founding of New China in1949, new legal system in China has been established,laying a good foundation for China’s legal construction. After Reform and Opening up in1978,under the impetus of the modernization, China’s legal modernization has restarted, andthereafter gotten all-round development.In review of history, it is not hard to find that different motives lay behind themodernization of China’s legal system; political, economic and cultural incentives were all atwork. In this historical process, the most powerful push came from the change of the politicalsystem and the democratization of politics: economic development and change of the economicmechanism played an utmost role therein. The western legal culture performed inceptive push,but traditional Chinese culture played a double role of start and impediment in themodernization of the Chinese legal system.In the development of the Chinese legal system, a few basic characters in differentdimensions have shaped up: measured in origins of the motive, there was a transition fromexogenous to endogenous development; measured in the mover, there as a transition fromgovernment to society; measured in the role of law in society, there was a transition from ruleby people to rule by law; measured in priority between right and duty, there was a transitionfrom duty to right; and finally, measured in formal standard of the modernization of legalinstitution, there was a transition from anti-formalism to formalization of legal institution.At present, some problems also exist in the process of promoting the modernization ofChina’s legal system, such as: the degree of national modernization is not ideal; traditionalnational political system is not adequate; people are lack of modern legal concept and legalsystem is not perfect. Therefore, we must promote the modernization of Chinese legal systemby:1) improving the level of national modernization,2）promoting the modernization ofnational management system and management ability,3)strengthening education of theconcept of ruling of law, and4)promoting the perfection of legal system.