Basic Characteristics of Traditional Legal Culture

Due to the influence of ritual culture, geographical environment, national customs and authoritarian political system, China's traditional legal culture has gradually developed into a unique public law character and institutional features. The establishment of the socialist market economy and the wave of globalization have led to the transformation of traditional Chinese legal culture into modern legal culture. The modern transformation of traditional Chinese legal culture is explained from the institutional level and the value level, and its sources and flows are discussed.

First

In the legal conceptual culture, it emphasizes the "unity of rites and laws" and "virtue is the master and punishment is the auxiliary", and "rites", as a system of differential rules, is regarded as the way to govern the country. As a system of differentiated rules, "ritual" was regarded as the way to rule the country. Ancient China overemphasized the role of criminal law and punishment and neglected the preventive function of law. In ancient China, etiquette was in fact all-encompassing, covering all aspects of a person's clothing, food, housing and transportation rules and etiquette, and once disobeyed, it was a "breach of etiquette". If a serious breach of etiquette, may be "out of etiquette into the criminal", criminal law as the maintenance of feudal rule is the last and most severe tool, but also a powerful weapon to cohesion of the people.

The second in the legal system culture, emphasizing the state power-based (essentially the family power-based), the supremacy of the emperor, the power is greater than the law, the law is subject to the domination of the power and constraints. It is manifested as follows: firstly, in the legislation of the law from the king, the monarch as the highest source of legal power; secondly, in the judicial chief executive also has the judicial power, the judicial and administrative unity; finally, in the legal structure of the system, the performance of the public law and private law is not divided, the litigation law is not divided from the substantive law, the formation of criminal law as the core of a single, closed system of law in China.

Third

In the legal psychological culture, the legal psychology of peace and quiet, the legal psychology of peace and litigation is widespread. On the one hand, the philosophical foundation of "the unity of man and heaven" has created a traditional Chinese legal culture that pursues order and harmony, thus bringing about the legal psychology of no lawsuits. On the other hand, the traditional family-oriented Chinese society, focusing on people's social obligations, but ignoring the rights of individuals; emphasis on the collective, the interests of the overall situation, so that individual members of the litigation will inevitably be subject to social, family and family concepts of inhibition.

Chinese traditional legal culture in the market economy concept, the wave of economic globalization and people's positive pursuit of rights and attention to the role of the **** together, at the institutional level and value level transformation. China's traditional legal culture in the market economy concept, the wave of economic globalization and people's active pursuit of rights and attach importance to the role of *** together, at the institutional level and value level has undergone a transformation. Fourthly, in legal trials, both the public and those exercising judicial power emphasize the organic combination of heavenly justice, human kindness and the law of the land, and more often than not, the human factor is magnified. As Confucius said, "the father is hidden for the son, the son is hidden for the father, straight in which carry on", that is to say, the Chinese people pay more attention to the factor of human feelings, and regard it as higher than the provisions of the law. In ancient times, the "emperor's grace", also shows that the law in ancient China is never the last line of defense to resolve disputes and conflicts, rather than resort to human feelings and authority. I think, this is not a bad factor, but the historical environment and cultural traditions, since the Western Han Dynasty, "Dismissed the hundred schools, exclusive respect for Confucianism" and make Confucianism become a prominent science, the ruling class requires everyone to self-restraint, unintentionally has raised the human factor of ethical affection, people used to ethical constraints and ritual constraints to constrain their own, but also constrain the rights of each other. People were accustomed to ethical and ritual constraints, which bound themselves and others, thus making their rights and obligations symmetrical, and maintaining the legal culture of a self-sufficient and self-supporting feudal society. As a matter of fact, there are too many aspects of Chinese legal culture to be listed, and they are only characterized by the above aspects.