With the preparations for a consstitutional system of government, attention was paid to the question of courts, this under the Manchys, and a commission of five members was sent abroad to America and Europe to investigate court systems, and recommend changes for China. In the 32nd year of Kuanghsu, the Board of Punishment was changed into the Board of Justice to deal exclusively with judicial matters. In that same year different grades of courts ranging down from the Supreme Court were also ordered to be established. In the 83rd year of the same reign the law of the reorganization of the judiciary was promulgated.
In the first year of the Emperor Huan Tung the provisional regula. tions of the courts in the capitals and ports were promulgated. This was the first time in China that Judicial power was separated from the executive.
The law of the organization of the Judiciary adopted the system of the "our grades"—Summary Court, District Court, High Court and Supreme Court, to be established and accompanied by another series of courts of the same grade—local procuratory, district _procuratory, high procuratory and chief procuratory. This system of "four grades and three trials" was borrowed directly from Japan who in turn had taken it from Germany. Although the system has not yet been brought to completion yet it did '@ great contribution to the judicial evolution of Chin
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.