Research On The Precedent System Of The Supreme Court In Early Republic Of China

After the bureaucracy reform of the late Qing Dynasty, Dali Yuan became the supreme judicial court of the early republic of China. Dali Yuan initiated the precedent system and then it was inherited by the National Government at Nanking and Taiwan. Also it supervised all levels of the courts and it had the right to interpret the united law, having a special legal status in modern China. During the whole time of the Beijing government, civil chambers of Dali Yuan heard more than20,000precedents. There are few papers about the operation of the precedent system of Dali Yuan in legal historians. And this is exactly what the article should primarily emphasize on. To this end, the article selected the early Republic of China to elaborate the precedent system including the constitution and power of Dali Yuan, the content and the operation of the precedent system. It is worth emphasizing that legal precedents have both the de facto and legal effects. And then the article will compare the precedent with the three important sources of law, recognizing that the precedent is different with the common law jurisprudence. And it is not the customary law or an independent source of law but a special legal theory. Furthermore, the article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the system and the reference for our judicial system. Meanwhile we should clearly recognize that it is even more important to learn from the wisdom of predecessors when the judicial practice experienced a painful decision and transformation. Reflecting the past may brighten now. The perfect balance of social change and the development of the legal system is helpful to resolve the current problems of the Supreme Court’s precedent guidance system encountered in practice and provide some inspiration. And this is another intention of this article.