Research Of Wang Tingxiang’s Judicial Idea

Wang Tingxiang is one of the most important thinker in mid-Ming Dynasty, also a famous official in Zhengde and Jiajing dynasties. He served as the censor associated with judicial duties in judicial practice. In years of judicial practice he wrote a large number of legal documents and cases which provide us illustrations and examples of social, legal and cultural environment in mid-Ming dynasty. Among the documents, "The Rescriptum Corpus of Jun Chuan" is an insightful collection of legal instruments which included tens of major criminal cases from Shanxi province before the eighth year of Zhengde. The content is rich and detailed oriented that recorded a large number of Tingxiang’s inference process and judicial opinions in judicial cases. "The Rescriptum Corpus of Jun Chuan" fully demonstrate Tingxiang’s "just", "obvious", "careful" judicial philosophy trial in the judicial process.This thesis is divided into four parts. The first part is an introduction which briefly describes the process of thesis writing, and points out the importance of the case study of ancient Chinese history research, indicating the meaning of "The Rescriptum Corpus of Jun Chuan" in this academic background. The introduction also describes the status of Wang Tingxiang’s judicial studies and the use of research methods in this thesis. The second part presents Wang Tingxiang’s experience, academic achievement, and overview of "The Rescriptum Corpus of Jun Chuan", etc. Combined with historical data, the present author focused on describing the urgent social background when "The Rescriptum Corpus of Jun Chuan" was written and on describing the publish process and general content of "The Rescriptum corpus of Jun Chuan". The third part is the main part of this thesis which mainly interprets content of "The Rescriptum corpus of Jun Chuan".The present author studied the key files in the corpus considering the social enviornment and legal system of the Ming Dynasty and Tingxiang philosophical and political thought. She affirms Tingxiang’s philosophy of "just, obvious, careful" and interprets Wang Tingxiang’s philosophy contains the idea of fair, democracy, compliance, facts, cautious,etc,and highlights the practice spirit and originality of Wang Tingxiang judicial philosophy. The Forth Part states the value Wang Tingxiang judicial philosophy, summarizes the historical status of Wang Tingxiang and his thoughts and the proposes the enlightenment of it to our country’s justice.