摘要
When people’s justice was conceived in Republican China, it brought with it a socialist conceptualisation of law and equity, by which the prefix of ‘people’ was not merely a superfluous addition to the term of ‘justice’. On the contrary, it emphasised a people-oriented approach in as much practising the law as correcting the law where arose a rigidity during its application. Such elements as class inequality and the supremacy of state interests were found therein, alongside with Mao*s emphasis on the mass line policy. By dividing the period from 1921 to 1945 into three sections, namely 1921-1927, 1927-1934 and 1935-1945, this article aims to give a brief discussion of the evolution of people's justice, both as a concept and as a system of laws, in China, which may help us to better appreciate the socialist notions and traditions of law and equity.
