Title: Legal transparency in dynastic China : the legalist-Confucianist debate and good governance in Chinese tradition /
Authors: Head, John W. 1953-; Xing, Lijuan.
Publisher: Carolina Academic Press,
Year: 2012
Subjects: Confucianism and law China History.; Law China Philosophy; Law China History; Law Philosophy; Law and ethics.; Rule of law.
Abstract: "This ambitious book examines the notion of legal transparency from a unique cultural and historical perspective. Drawing from their combined academic and practical experience with both Chinese and Western legal traditions, authors John Head and Xing Lijuan explore how an intense debate - pitting legal transparency against legal opaqueness - unfolded in dynastic Chinese law, which began in the dark mists of history and ended formally just over a hundred years ago. They rely on a wide range of both Western and Chinese sources to explain how that great debate was resolved in the early Han Dynasty (around the third century BCE) in a way that molded Chinese law into a sophisticated legal system that for roughly two millennia balanced definitiveness with vagueness, predictability with flexibility, and egalitarianism with privilege - and that reflected cultural values still resonating in China today.^