Early Qing Dynasty In The English Criminal Law Conflict Perspective

In early Qing Dynasty, with the communications between China and West developed, the conflict between China and West in the legal field has revealed. To better understand the Chinese law, the British launched a Chinese-depth legal research. Focusing on Sir Thomas·Staunton and his translation of the English version of "Ta Tsing Leu Lee", this paper, presents the image of Chinese law in West and the causes of conflict between China and England in criminal law. Take Sir Thomas·Staunton as the representative of the Western eyes, despite the Chinese law has rationality and logically, but in practice the judicial process is lack of enforceability. The conflict between China and England in criminal law is cause by the legal cultures differences between China and England. There are obvious differences between the Chinese and western traditional idea of law, the essence and characteristic of western idea of law embody in individuality, justice and dualism while those of Chinese traditional idea of law distinctly lie in collectivity-matrix and pursuit of non-suit and harmony as its orientation of value. To take a correct view of the legal cultures against and the resulting changes of the Chinese legal system, we can build a modern Chinese legal system and "learn from the history"This dissertation has four chapters.Chapter One reviews the history of the western research of Chinese law, and made a brief introduction of Sir Thomas·Staunton.Chapter Two generally introduces the edition,style and translation about "Ta Tsing Leu Lee". As the first book directly translate into the Chinese Code of English, this book and the series of commentaries by Sir Thomas·Staunton played an important role in guiding the Western to understand Chinese law.Chapter Three starting from the evaluation by Sir Thomas·Staunton, described the image of Chinese criminal justice in the Western.Chapter Four analyzes the performance of the conflict between China and England in criminal law, and then seek to explain the reasons for such conflict.