Formerly under the Chinese legal system all laws were penal in ture, and litigants in civil disputes who' went so far as to get into the courts were regarded as wrong-deers. Nevertheless sonfle civil matters inevitably came before the courts, expecially questions of Tsing Criminal Code has 1 provisions mixed up with the criminal. The later rulers of the Tsing Dynasty realized that a Aivision of criminal and civil law had become necessary and appointed a commission about 1905 to find out about Western laws, This commission eventually drafted proposed codes of civil, criminal, commercial, and procedural law, modelled to a considerable extent on the Japanese Code. The Empreor Hsuan Tung (1908) provisionally promulgated a inal code and a law for the organization of the judiciary. Thus the criminal and civil laws were formally separated and the founda. tion for the independence of the Judiciary begun.
With the establishment of the Republica provisional criminal code was promulgated by Presidential mandate, and this proional code has been amended from time to time in the same man-ver. This provisional code veneral compares favourably with the criminal codes of western nations though there are a fow features that appear to an ocantal mind as lacking any legal One of these is: Not all person are equal before the law. In certain offences descendants are punished more heavily than ascendants.
'A press law was also promulgated by the president which was subse-manently merged into the publication Jaw. The primary object of this law was to prevent any expression of public opinion that might. prevent Yuan Shih-kai from making himself emperor. This law is still enforced and is used freely against the press to prevent expressions of Large numbers of newspapers have been suppressed under this law and the editors imprisoned or fined.
The following list taken from the China Yenr Book (1925) shows the criminal codes now provisionally effect.
Provisional Criminal Code, Promulgated on March 10, 1912. Amended on December 24, i914, Law relating to" Morphia. Promulgated on April 11, 1914, Amended on December 31, 1920.
Law relating to Offences against the Government Salt Monopoly, Promulgated
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.