The Legal Systems Of China And India

China has changed in certain ways and remained the same in others from the early Golden Ages to the late 1900s. China has experienced a series of cultural and political transformations, shaping the lives of many Chinese citizens. Culturally, the country’s art and literature hardly changed for almost eight hundred years. Along with their culture, China remained politically the same from the beginning of the Golden Ages all the way until the 1800s. On the other hand, China’s government and society were restructured after new leaders took over. From a monarch to total communism, China’s society had a multitude of new ideas and policies they had to adapt to.

Legalism was very different from both Confucianism and Daoism because Legalism was the belief that people needed to be controlled because they were evil. Legalism is found in China and was founded by Han Feize. While it is unknown when Legalism was established, it is known that Han Feize was born in 280 B.C. so that gives a general time when legalism started. Legalism didn’t deal with much religious concerns but was more of a political philosophy instead. Citizens were seen to be responsible for actions of one another. A person who is considered guilty, their relatives and neighbors should be punished as well. This was a way to make sure that the laws are followed. The laws are strict with harsh punishments. People who spy on others and report anything that they do wrong to the authorities are thought to be doing right of the law. Both Legalism and Confucianism are belief systems within a group of people, not religions, and both are intended to lead to an orderly way of life, how they approach their teachings are complete opposed.

To be sure, modern laws are made to express the general will, a will that aims at the common good. This means that laws in most cases intend to protect every social member’s rights under the principle of justice and fairness. For telling examples one need to look no further than American judicial system. The access to the two courts systems, one federal court and one state court, provides citizens with the greatest potential to have their legal problems

Under the Civil Law system, the laws are written and codified that the judges have to follow verbatium. Whereas, under the common law system that is followed by Australia, India and the United Kingdom, the laws are codified, doctrine of precedents is followed but the higher courts have the power to over-rule old judgements and existing law in cases where the law breaches the basic structure. (Peterson)

The Ch’in Dynasty had a strong, totalitarian, central government that was very structure and provided structure for the people. Legalism was very beneficially effective in the way that it ended the Warring States period by using their powerful government to rid China of feudal lords and feudal states and taking all of the land back from them because they had all taken advantage of both each other and the land. During the period of their strict rule through legalism, the Ch’in accomplished starting and building 1,845 miles of the Great wall of China to keep out invaders from the north, helping to protect their people, and building over 400 miles of roads and irrigation systems for their people. However, legalism also negatively impacted the lives of the people of China during the Ch’in Dynasty in multiple ways. In order to make the people believe that Legalism was best, the Ch’in burned books on history and Confucianism, and killed Confucian scholars who refused to give up their beliefs. Those who did something that the government did not like were punished. All of the people’s actions had consequences, both good and bad. The Ch’in forced people to work for them for months on end without having any guarantee for them or their families of knowing when they would be home, if they would ever return, or if they would die working. This violated the basic human rights of the people who were forced to work for the government on projects such as the Great Wall of

Legalism is an ancient Chinese philosophy of administration that believes that humans are more inclined to do wrong than right because they are motivated entirely by self-interest. Shi Huangdi was the founder of the Qin dynasty. After conquering the seven kingdoms in ancient China, he halted the Warring States Period and took the throne as the first emperor of the unified Chinese nation. He ruled on the basis of Legalism. To prevent criticism of his rule, Shi Huangdi ordered that all books that seemed to be useless or against him be burned. This included all poetry from the Chou dynasty and all books written by Confucian scholars. The only books from previous eras that Shi Huangdi let off were the practical ones about medicine and farming. Focusing on the issue of media censorship, the current Chinese government governs in a similar way to the way Qin Shi Huangdi once governed. China still blocks and monitor citizens access to several social media services and shuts down media entertainment programs during government events. While some may see this as an extreme form of censorship, we must consider the fact that several other countries have similar policies in place.

In both China and the United States, the judicial system is composed of courts that contain several different levels. However, there is a basic structural difference between the Chinese and American legal systems. In America, the three branches of government are supposed to be separate, so that the court system is supposed to be beyond party politics and partisan antics. This separate system of checks and balances does not exist in China. On the contrary, the judicial branch is not independent. It is meant as an extension of the government, and therefore of the single political party with any power in China. The distinction between American judicial independence and Chinese judicial dependence may be one of the most critical differences between the two systems because the American judicial branch is meant to act as a check and balance with the other systems, while China's three-part system has the same branches but lacks the same independence.

This paper will cover topics such as; what a court is and what the purpose of the court is. This paper will define the dual court system. In addition this paper will describe the role that early legal codes, the common law and the precedent played in the development of courts. And lastly this paper will identify the role of the courts in the criminal justice system today.

The United Kingdom’s constitution was written in 1215 and was last revised in 2013. This shows that the rule of law has remain relatively consistent besides being updated to keep up with the times. China’s constitution was adopted in 1982 and revised in 2004, which shows that China’s current rule of law is a little bit more modernized.

The Qin Dynasty is one of the most famous dynasty in ancient Chinese history. It was formed under the principles of Legalism. Legalists were people who were fearful that their states would listen to political theorists who would try to lure the states into gathering more power. These Legalists agreed on a philosophy of, requiring very strict laws to keep the provinces in check rather than relying on thoughts of the kings and his executives. This lead to a system of bureaucracy that kept a watch on everyone in the provinces/districts.

For this paper, I will be discussing two opposing ideologies, Confucianism and Legalism. Towards the later part of ancient China (e.g Han dynasty), states started to adopt a mixture of Confucianism and Legalistic ideology. Why did Legalism and Confucianism fall off?

Law is one part of a set of processes, social, political, economic and cultural, which shape and direct the development of society. Like all other mechanisms the law seeks to govern human behaviour. The Irish law system belongs to common law systems established in England by the Norman's. This type of law responded to actual rather than anticipated problems. In contrast the law in the civil system is contained in comprehensive codes which are enacted by legislators and which attempt to provide for every legal contingency. Case law or 'la jurisprudence' has lesser significance and lacks the quality of enjoying in the force of law.

The rule of law is a difficult concept to grasp and proves elusive to substantive definition. However, the following work considers the attempts of various social and legal theorists to define the concept and pertinent authorities are considered. Attitudes and emphasis as to the exact shape, form and content of the rule of law differ quite widely depending on the socio-political perspective and views of respective commentators (Slapper and Kelly, 2009, p16), although there are common themes that are almost universally adopted. The conclusions to this work endeavour to consolidate thinking on the rule of law in order to address the question posed in the title, which is at first sight a deceptively simple one.

Nowadays every legal system wants to achieve justice. Different legal traditions in the world have given a different meaning of this concept by following one of the two legal systems: a civil law system and a common law system. The civil law system emerged from Roman law and throughout many centuries has been developed in continental Europe and often is called a “continental legal system”, achieving its prominence through development of aqui communitare in Europe. The common law system emerged in England during the Anglo-Saxon period and was developed by British colonies, reaching its peak in the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Law is the expression of the will of the society. Its virtue or vice depends on the social conscience at a given time. A bad law is a manifestation of an aberration in a body politic of the conscience of the society.