Promotion of the Chinese Legal Culture and System in the New Era

The 5000-years uninterrupted Chinese legal culture embodies the political and legal wisdom of the Chinese nation and is a source of pride for the Chinese nation.It has provided extremely rich resources and treasures for the construction of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics.It has been inherited vertically,evolved intergenerationally and reserved continuously.Originating from both the historical legal system and from Marxist historical materialism,the Chinese legal system has profoundly influenced neighboring countries.The comprehensive governance of politics,law,and morality in ancient China,as reflected in the Rites of Zhou,a book of the Western Zhou Dynasty(1027-771 BC)on cultural ideology and political structure,provides an early work on the governance of ancient China.Chinese legal culture has remained progressive,and with the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,it is now important to promote Chinese legal culture for construction of the Chinese legal system in the new era.

Advancing the Chinese Legal System Through Inheriting Excellent Traditional Chinese Legal Culture

Currently,research on the Chinese legal system is flourishing,and more and more issues are worthy of exploration.The Chinese legal system is unique among the five major legal systems in the world.It is the only ancient secular legal system,and the only ancient secular legal system to have been disseminated by non-coercive means.The openness of the Chinese legal system is a powerful proof that traditional Chinese law plays a role in importing and exporting legal policies and measures from and to other states.Indeed,these issues are important in research on the Chinese legal system,and a correct understanding of them can help to comprehensively understand traditional Chinese legal culture.It is essential to deepen the research on the Chinese legal system to contribute to its revival and to the inheritance of traditional Chinese legal culture.In addition to comprehensive discussions,it is also necessary to fill gaps and advance the research on the Chinese legal system.

Ancient China’s Legal Tradition and Legal Thought

China＇s pre-modern legal system enjoyed a continuous history of more than four thousand years. In the course of this long process, it developed distinctive legal traditions, including a tradition that prioritized agriculture, a stress on criminal law at the expense of civil law, an ethical orientation that stressed the five Confucian relationships, an approach to the legal traditions of different ethnic groups that embraced diversity in unity, and a Confucianized legal system based on virtue and ritual. These legal traditions were all based on the accretion of a deep-rooted legal culture which embodied the wisdom and creativity of the Chinese people. At the same time, they bore the stamp of China＇s national conditions： an economic structure dominated by agriculture, an autocratic political system, a multi-ethnic national structure, the preeminent position of Confucian thought, the uneven development of politics, culture and the economy, etc.

Construction of Chinese Judicial Power from the Perspective of National Governance

The Chinese national governance system includes the Party＇s governing system, the People＇s Congress system, the administrative system, the court system and the procuratorate. Judicial power is neutral, passive, independent and final, features that reflect the irreplaceable nature of its role in national governance. The growth of judicial power is diachronic, complex and evolutionary, which means that its construction will be a tortuous and difficult process. Given the limitations of the functions of judicial power in China and their immediate results, we should fix our gaze on the construction of a socialist country under the rule of law and the optimization of the structure and functions of our national governance system by taking checks and balance as the principle in the allocation of judicial power, taking rights protection as the heart of the operation of judicial power, taking harmonious operation as the standard for guaranteeing judicial power, and cultivating legal culture as the foundation supporting judicial power. In optimizing national governance itself, we should strengthen its functions of adaptation, integration, goal attainment and latency.