University of Helsinki
Welcome to a lecture on Chinese legal history!
Dr. Junqiang Du from Xi’an Jiaotong University School of Law will talk on
“Judicial Reasoning in Traditional China and its Impacts on Modern China”
on Thursday, April 20, 2017, at 3.15 p.m. in Porthania Building, University of Helsinki, at fifth floor, room P 545.
China’s long legal history is cogently analysed by TUNG- TSU CH’U in the book Law and society in Traditional China. Obviously, there are topics deserving further research and in this talk I would like to focus on China’s old legal system and culture since some of their aspects last for more than 2000 years while others have been subject to some important transformations.
Although the old legal system formally ended with late Qing Dynasty’s legal reform at the beginning of the 20th century, the legal culture of the old system survived and is still alive in modern society in China. For instance, in some special cases, people use such traditional legal culture as a source of their arguments. And for this reason, China’s current judicial reform aiming to improve judicial reasoning also has to take into account the legal culture of the old legal system.
In this lecture, Dr. Junqiang Du, Lecturer in Law at Xi’an Jiaotong University School of Law, analyses the benefits and drawbacks of judicial reasoning in traditional China and argues that such an understanding is also useful to grasp better Modern China.
Kimmo Nuotio, Professor of Criminal Law, and Dean of the University of Helsinki Faculty of Law, will open the event.