The Role and Characteristics of Law in the Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty is an era to be remembered forever in the history of ancient Chinese development. The Song Dynasty saw great development and remarkable changes in economy, politics, culture, science and technology than the previous dynasty. According to Yang Gaofan, PhD, associate professor of Law School of Henan University, the Song Dynasty not only developed politically and economically, but the legal system construction also showed the characteristics of the era that fit with its economy, politics and culture. Adjustment of commodity economic relations, the maintenance of private rights and interests of economic legislation and civil legislation more detailed and complete, with unparalleled characteristics of the times.

The Song Dynasty was a feudal dynasty in which the commodity economy developed at a high speed and private ownership was dominant. This period not only made people's concept of righteousness and private rights change, but also promoted the development of civil legal relations, so that the civil legal norms, which are mainly based on the maintenance of private rights, are more complete. As a result, the civil law became an important part of the Song dynasty law which is the richest in content and most reflective of the characteristics of Song dynasty law.

First of all, it is the change of the subject of civil rights. In the tenancy system, the prevalence of employment system in the Song Dynasty, not only the official households, landlords, civilians enjoy the rights and obligations under the law, is the Tang Dynasty "pariahs", that is, the Song Dynasty customers, craftsmen, machine households and even private employment of manpower and women, etc., in the Song Dynasty, also became the state of the household Qimin, the qualification of the rights of the subject in accordance with the law, the "pariah". The improvement of the legal status of the "untouchables" was an important manifestation of the changes in the civil legal system and relations in the Song Dynasty. In addition, the Song Dynasty saw the emergence of yizhuang, sacrificial fields, school fields and temples, etc., all of which had independent property, a complete management system, and were social organizations protected by law. In law, they have the nature of consortium and comprehensive legal person.

The second is the detailed property law. The Song Dynasty was a dynasty with a high degree of development of private ownership and a deepening of the concept of ownership, so the laws that regulate the relationship between property rights and safeguard the interests of private rights were also quite detailed. Although there is no modern concept of movable and immovable property in the Song Dynasty, but in the content of the property and industry, whether it is private property or official property, private property or public property, are the object of the law is actively defended. Song dynasty law on the original acquisition of the right of property of movable property (first occupation, lost things, drift things picked up, buried things found, etc.) and inheritance (sale, gift, inheritance, etc.) and additions to the treatment of things have made detailed provisions. There is also clear legislation on pledging, pawning and pledging of movable property rights as security for loans. Anyone who privately removes and disposes of property owned by others constitutes the crime of theft in the criminal law, and severe penalties are provided. In addition, the Song Dynasty law on the acquisition, use, income and disposal of real estate ownership of the main content of the field and house more detailed provisions.

Since the Song rulers adopted a laissez-faire policy on the occupation, reclamation, and sale of land, they brought new features to the acquisition of land ownership. Under the impact of commercial capital and usurious capital, land was put into circulation in the form of commodities, which made the transfer of land ownership quite frequent, and the sale and purchase of land became the main way of acquiring land ownership. The prevalence of tenancy system and sale system in Song Dynasty made the right of possession, right of use and right of income of land separate, Song Dynasty law not only recognized the legitimacy of such separation, but also allowed the right of possession and right of use to be transferred independently with compensation and be protected by law. The perpetual sharecropping right was a powerful property right in Song Dynasty land ownership, which could be inherited from generation to generation, and could also be pledged to transfer the right of use and the right of income. The content of the Song property law is very rich, and it plays a positive role in safeguarding the rights and interests of the state, the collective and the individual.

The third is the development of debt law and the development of contractual relations. Debt is a civil legal relationship between specific parties requesting specific behavior. Song dynasty commodity economy development, commodity exchange relationship complexity, in the sale, borrowing, pawning, tenancy and other contractual relations, due to tort, unjustified enrichment, causeless management and other legal facts, produced between the people of the debt, debt relationship. In order to safeguard the interests of creditors, the Song dynasty in the law of the occurrence of debt, debt fulfillment, debt security, debt exemption, the mandatory effect of debt and the rights of creditors, the debtor's obligations are made in detail, so much so that there is a "violation of the contract is not compensated for, the official for the reason for the claim," the statement, in order to safeguard the interests of creditors. In the contractual relationship, the contract of the song dynasty as the legal form of commodity exchange relationship, is to adapt to the development of private ownership and the objective requirements of the development of the commodity economy and the development of the important legal basis for the maintenance of ownership interests. There were many types of contracts in the Song Dynasty, including sale and purchase contracts, loan contracts, pledge contracts, and tenancy contracts, but regardless of the type of contract, the government recognized the legal effect of any contract that was sealed by the government and paid a tax. In order to safeguard the interests of the owner, the Song dynasty law on the contract of the conclusion, fulfillment, change, dissolution, liability, limitation, damages, etc. have made strict provisions, clear the rights and obligations of both parties to the contract.

The fourth is the expansion of women's rights in marriage and family relations. With the development of the commodity economy in the Song Dynasty, women's social labor was further enhanced. The change of women's economic status drove the change of women's status in marriage and family. In the marriage relationship, Song women's legal right to divorce broke through the scope of "seven out" and "righteousness", and the initiative of divorce has increased significantly. With the change of people's understanding of women's chastity, all social strata of women's remarriage showed positive supportive attitude. In the law, there was a corresponding increase in the number of pieces of legislation defending women's right to freedom of remarriage. In the Song Dynasty, it was stipulated that widowed wives could either marry another man or recruit a husband, and women's remarriage became a common social phenomenon in the Song Dynasty. In family relations, especially in families in which the husband died and the wife was present, the law determined the right of the widowed wife to the household, and in families in which the household was extinct, the widow enjoyed the right of succession and the right of subrogation in accordance with the law. Therefore, the change in the status of women in marriage and family in the Song Dynasty is also an important manifestation of the change in the law in the Song Dynasty. At the same time, the Song dynasty in the property inheritance law and other aspects of the system is also very complete, which reflects the deepening of the Song dynasty on the maintenance of private rights and legal system characteristics.

The Song dynasty in the improvement of the legal system at the same time, pay attention to the construction of the program has also become its litigation law of the times. The procedural law is to ensure the correct realization of the substantive law of the procedural law, according to the nature of the case, the procedural law is divided into criminal and civil proceedings. The code of the Song Dynasty, like its predecessors, not only did not distinguish between substantive law and procedural law, but also did not distinguish between criminal law and civil law. Its judicial institutions, principles of litigation activities, litigation procedures, trial methods, judgment methods, etc., although more borrowed from the Tang Dynasty system, but the abuse of judicial power to procedural constraints is its outstanding features. In the Song Dynasty, with the centralization of power, the strengthening of the power of the monarch, manifested in the justice is the emperor more and more widely exercise the right to judgment, the then Inquisition became the emperor to judge the case of the advisory organs. In the Song dynasty, the administrative organs of the central government, such as the Zhongshu, the Privy Council, and the Three Secretaries, intervened directly in judicial and adjudicative activities. At the local level, it was emphasized that state and county administrators had to personally try cases, which both increased their judicial responsibility and expanded their judicial power. This is all a manifestation of the emperor's strengthened control over judicial power, and is also an important feature in the justice of the Song dynasty.

Institutional justice was the most prominent highlight of criminal trials in the Song Dynasty. In order to ensure the effective implementation of the substantive law, the Song Dynasty constructed a complete system of trial, review, supervision and inspection institutions, stipulated a detailed form of prosecution, and established a system of collecting, identifying, and applying evidence. In order to prevent judicial officials from abusing their powers and practicing favoritism in trial activities, resulting in the abuse of criminal justice, the trial power was restricted at the institutional level. Firstly, the system of "separate judgments" was established to separate the power of trial from the power of judgment; secondly, the system of "the chief's visit" was stipulated to prevent the malpractice of officials in the judicial trial; and thirdly, the system of "avoidance of close suspicion" was implemented to ensure that the trial was conducted in accordance with the principle of "the right to avoid the trial". Thirdly, the system of "avoidance of close suspicion" was introduced to ensure the fairness of the trial; fourthly, the system of "investigation and questioning according to the petition" was established to prevent the emergence of treacherous prisons outside the petition; and fifthly, the abusive application of interrogation was restricted to prevent the emergence of wrongful convictions. In the judicial system, the trial procedures are particularly strict. From the scene of the criminal investigation, evidence collection, interrogation to the conclusion of the case, all stipulated strict procedures and standards to prevent officials in all aspects of the opportunity to create treachery. In the trial after the conclusion of the case, the prosecution of the sentence before the creation of the necessary record questioning procedures, that is, for more than the prison sentence of a large case, another arrangement for officials to mention the record questioning of offenders, to further verify the facts of the crime, in order to prevent errors in the trial, which is not the trial of other dynasties in the procedure. After the examination is complete, the prosecutor will check the applicable laws according to the case, which will limit the conviction and sentence within the law. Afterwards, the judge drafted the initial judgment according to the case and the law, and then submitted it to the governor for final judgment after the collective examination and signing by the general judge and the judge of the judge's office. Such a strict trial and judgment procedure is unique in Chinese legal history. Attempts to achieve legal justice through institutional justice, but also the Song Dynasty legal construction tends to civilization of the outstanding performance.

In the Song Dynasty, with the expansion of the subject of civil rights, the law on civil litigation is also more complete and specific. The Song dynasty not only clearly stipulated the acceptance of civil lawsuits, "service limit", the case "end" of the time limit, after the conclusion of the trial, the government to give the parties "break by", and the civil litigation trial of the case of the improper Authorized parties to appeal. More noteworthy, the Southern Song Dynasty in order to relieve the people's power, restoration of production, clamping down on illegal officials to harm the people, widely open the law of the law, which not only enriched the content of the Song civil procedure law, expanding the right to civil litigation, but also highlights the development of the Song dynasty civil procedure law.

In ancient China, there were no lawyers and no defense system, and the people's lawsuits depended on the officials' decisions, so the people who were wronged could not get legal help. To the Song Dynasty, due to the deepening of the concept of private rights, the relative expansion of personal rights, the use of the law to defend their rights and interests in the desire to grow stronger. Based on the needs of the society, the folk in the south of the Yangtze River produced "teaching cited litigation theory", "teaching rhetoric and litigation instruments" of litigation. At the same time, also appeared specializing in teaching litigation, on behalf of the defense of reasoning for the profession of the litigators and to the pen for the profession of writing the petition on behalf of the book. The emergence of litigation, litigators and the emergence of the servant pen for the book, is a major change in the history of Chinese feudal litigation, but also reflects the Song dynasty litigation activities are very active.

At the same time, in order to safeguard the economic interests of the state, although there is no economic law in the modern sense of the Song dynasty, but with the development of the commodity economy, the centralized system of power to strengthen the adjustment of economic relations, and to safeguard the interests of the state aspects of the law is quite rich: such as the commercial law, the patent law, mining and metallurgy law, financial law, taxation law, money law, money law, etc., the Song dynasty, despite the economic legislation in order to safeguard the interests of the state, but it is also the Song dynasty economic legislation, although it is to safeguard the interests of the state, but also the needs of the development of the commodity economy, to promote the development of the commodity economy has had a certain positive effect.

Overall view of the Song Dynasty legal construction, not only detailed specification, rich in content, but also shows the outstanding characteristics of the times. Civil and economic laws and regulations to show the development of private rights and the development of the commodity economy in the Song Dynasty; from the litigation law and civil litigation law to show the Song people on the importance of procedural law. It can be said that the Song legal system in the law of the class and social aspects of the performance is very prominent. Although there are aspects of the Song legal system inherited from the old system, but also has its own distinctive characteristics of the times, in the history of Chinese feudal law still has an irreplaceable role and status.