Research On The Zoucai System Of Criminal Cases In Song Dynasty

The Zoucai System of Criminal Cases is also called Zoucaifa,which is an important judicial system in the Song Dynasty.According to this system,all criminal cases that meet the requirements of zoucai must be submitted to the emperor for a final decision.The original intention of the legislation of the system is to make up for the lack of strict application of the law and to achieve the fairness and justice of the judgmentn,but also to strengthen the emperor's control over the judicial power.The Zoucai-related decrees issued by successive emperors of Song Dynasty constitute an important part of the Zoucai System of Criminal Cases.At any time,the emperor could amend the system to make certain crimes as Zouan or to exclude them.The cases that apply to the Zoucai System of Criminal Cases are called Zouan.The main body of the Zouan are the cases of Xing Ming Yi Lv,Qing Li Ke Min,Qing Qing Fa Zhong,Qing Zhong Fa Qing.It also includs a significant number of crimes without such circumstances,such as official's crime should be submitted to the emperor for adjudication.Zouan shall be reviewed by the central judicial institutions.Then,the cases will be submitted to the Shangshusheng and then transferred to the Zhongshusheng to present it to the emperor,who makes the final decision.Particularly difficult cases are also discussed by many ministers.The Zoucai System of Criminal Cases is guided by the principle of “assuming disputed crime lighter”,and the main ruling principle is leniency and exemption of the death penalty.The monarchs and ministers advocate benevolence and pay attention to prudent punishment.In general,the criminal cases submitted to the superior can be dealt with leniently.During the implementation of the system,there are also some disadvantages,such as the case can not be judged in time after it is submitted to the superior,resulting in a backlog of cases,and the judicial officials do not fulfill their duties,arbitrarily submit the case to their superiors or indulge the criminals,resulting in many prisoners escaping the punishment of death penalty.Although the court has taken many measures to solve these problems,the effect is not obvious.From the historical records,the more time goes by,the more serious these disadvantages are.The Zoucai System of Criminal Cases also bears the burden of equity judicature.In the Song Dynasty,judicial officials don't have the authority to add or reduce penalty beyond the law,so they could only submit the cases as Zouan to the court,and in the end,emperors make judgements to meet the requirements of law and morality at the same time.The main basis of whether a criminal case should be submitted or not is sentiment and reason.In order to unify the judge's understanding of the degree of sentiment and reason,the court stipulates the degree of sentiment and reason in some crimes by way of legislation,but more of it is still determined by the judge in the way of free evaluation.