Research On The Criminal Law System In Liao Dynasty

Criminal law system is the general name of a series of systems that stipulate crimes and penalties,and it is an important part of the political system of ancient Chinese dynasties.The Liao Dynasty was a political power established with the Khitan ethnic group as the main body.Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China,Khitan had only some simple customary laws.With the country becoming stronger and the land and population increasing,there was a demand for the criminal law system.The Taizu Dynasty decided to "rule the Qidan and the Yi people",and the Han people broke the law,which initially formed the situation that the criminal law system was divided between the north and the south.With the deepening of sinicization,the original criminal law system could not meet the actual needs,and a large-scale legal reform began.By the time of Xing Zong Dynasty,the time had come to revise the systematic written code,and the "Chongxi New Rules and Regulations" was revised,which was another revision of the laws and regulations applicable to the frontier ethnic groups after the "Law of Qidan and Zhuyi".Dao Zongchao tried to unify the two criminal law systems in order to "unify the law".However,due to the immature time and low level of legislation,the efforts to "unify the law" ended in failure.The core content of the criminal law system is the penalty system that stipulates the punishment methods of various crimes,and the penalty system takes the positive punishment as the core.There has been a dispute in the academic circles that the Liao Dynasty is a five-penalty system and a four-penalty system.This paper studies that there are only four positive punishments in Liao Dynasty,namely death,flow,staff and imprisonment,but not flogging.There are many kinds of death penalty in Liao Dynasty,but there are many extra-judicial punishments,which do not belong to the criminal law system and deserve to be discriminated.The characteristic of exile punishment is that it is mostly used for leniency,and the exile places are mostly north-south convection.The application scope of caning is wide,and the number and instruments of torture are flexible and diverse.Those who are sentenced to imprisonment should be sent to a fixed place to work,which is often accompanied by rod punishment and face punishment.The characteristics of criminal law system in Liao Dynasty include the intervention of imperial power to law,the duality of criminal law,cruelty and arbitrariness.Imperial power is above criminal law,which is the basic feature of ancient Chinese society.In Liao Dynasty,it is more obvious."Unfortunately,when there is fainting,there are few excuses,so why not." [Liao History,Vol.62,Criminal Law Records,Punctuation Edition,Zhonghua Book Company,2016,p.1049.] Mu Zong and Tianzuo Dynasty performed most obviously.However,the criminal law system can also restrict the imperial power in other ways.There is no doubt that duality is the characteristic of the criminal law system in Liao Dynasty.However,judging from the prison situation,there is no binary system of either or the other.Han people can govern Qidan people’s prison,and Qidan people can also govern Han people’s prison.In Liao Dynasty,there were a lot of convicts and punishments without a license,which showed some cruelty and randomness.The criminal law system of Liao Dynasty had a great influence on the political,military and social life of Liao Dynasty.Politically speaking,the criminal law system can stabilize the political situation and prohibit violence and rape;As far as the military is concerned,the criminal law system can stabilize the morale of the army and stimulate morale;In terms of social life,the penalty system can punish evil and promote good,publicize Confucian ideas and promote the process of social sinicization.The criminal law system of Liao Dynasty also provides an important reference for the criminal law system of Jin Dynasty.Its mature dual system provides a reference for future frontier ethnic regimes,injects fresh blood into the Chinese legal system,and even provides useful experience for the legal system construction of China’s multi-ethnic society today.