2013 Volume 62 Pages 35-84,en5
This paper pays its attention to the relation of a magistrate who is located on the end of the governmental bureaucracy to his superior. With that in mind, I elucidate how did the magistrate cope with the criminal procedure in Qing Dynasty, and what kind of range did his choice spread through.
The way of the react of the magistrate on criminal procedure in Qing Dynasty is the report to the magistrate's superior, court trial, and the judgment of the penalty. According to the case to inflict a penalty on a criminal of a robbery and a theft case in "DanxinDang-an", when the case in itself was forged, and when the prospect of processing is formed, the magistrate not report to his superior. When a case occurred and the investigation started, he reported to his superior. Consider of the procedure of a retrial and a possibility of punishment by the ability of him to have not solved a theft case, for the background that he reported to his superior, there was the element that the magistrate is demanded from in the relations with his superior. The main point by the court trial is examination to a criminal and interested parties. The statement in the court is also stand on the relationship between the magistrate and his superior. For submit a report to his superior, he summarized statement with the consistency, and made the story that a interested relative could share. If it is an unnecessary case to report to his superior, he did not have to make the story, and it was not necessary to let a criminal admit the guilt.
About the judgment of the penalty, in the case of an own director case, although the "suodai-shidun" and the death penalty should depend on the codified norm, I cannot confirm that the magistrate depend on it. On the other hand, if it is a necessary case to report to his superior, I can confirm that he depended on the codified norm. Therefore, I think that it was the procedure that a magistrate performs for his superior to depend on the codified norm.
I am able to get the above knowledge from "DanxinDang-an". It is thought that it had universality fixed in China under the Qing Dynasty since this knowledge was read in main books of those days. However, on the other hand, law and the system that a bureaucrat should observe also existed in the criminal trial of those days. Based on the above editorial, I think the procedure in a criminal trial in those days and the way which the bureaucrat keeps law and the system, the bureaucrat did not depend on merely law and the system, he used the means that an appropriate result was provided. In this reasoning, the structure of the idea of the governmental bureaucracy that a superior person stands in the high rank and he can judge appropriately is reflected.
Seeing from the point of view that the choice which the magistrate has in a criminal trial, at first, there is a choice whether he report for his superior or processes by self discretion, to the next, it is thought that there were various choices including depending on law and the system. And all of them were administrative action of the officials, and the people existed as an object of a trial.
