User Comments - panshan

Posted on: Love Tangle 5: The Mistress

@suxiaoya

Thanks for the tip.  I'm just getting used to the CP format...

PanShan

Posted on: Love Tangle 5: The Mistress

Hey CPod team, I have a technical request...

I'm a new Podder, so when I see this kind of lesson, I really want to start from the beginning.  How can I easily get back to the first in the series without looking through every lesson in the upper intermediate group to get the whole series as one? 

My request: can they be easily grouped into a single package that is easily accessed?

不好意思,

潘山 

Posted on: 扎着麻花辫的女孩二

Yes...  I'm definitely scared of "hairface."

Posted on: 扎着麻花辫的女孩二

怕死我了.  聽到扎着麻花辫的女孩那門课,以為是個爱情故事,突然是個恐怖片. 

Posted on: 谋杀案三

Definitely will look at those citations, Bodawei.  Thanks for the info.

On another note (@ lujiben, I suppose), one of the features of the Chinese Judge which my professor has pointed out is that they tend to be a full time mediator/arbitrator throughout the legal process.  She says that the ultimate goal is for the judge to settle the dispute as efficiently as possible, in that if both parties can concede some part of the issue, that will comport more closely with the Chinese sense of Justice.  In other words, rather than a winner and a loser, the goal is to find common ground, even if that leads to less than total relief for the Plaintiff.  That seems to fit with the comments made above by lujiben about the remedy sometimes being an apology.  I don't think I've read a case which had that result in an American courtroom, but this a common remedy in mediation.

Thanks again for the insight, CPoddies.  This really helps put the Chinese legal system in perspective.  I look forward to more discussion, and I can't wait to get ahold of the Dutton/Lee articles...

Pan Shan

Posted on: 谋杀案三

@bodawei & other CPoddies

I am taking a seminar on Chinese law at a Law School in Minnesota right now, so this is a very interesting topic for me.  I wish I had some of the first hand experience that many of you veteran CPoddies have, but I am getting some helpful foundational information, however.  Here's some background and observation about criminal law:

A system of criminal law has been in place in China for thousands of years, but the procedure has always been distinct from the Western concept of justice.  Officials were typically the prosecutor AND the judge in any case, and torture was routinely used to get confessions.  Moreover, there was not ordinarily an advocate for the defendant, so they were left on their own to survive the trial.  This system was true up through the 清朝, and started to give way to Western concepts of justice as the 國民黨and PRC began to revise their overall legal framework to resemble that of Europe and the Soviet Union.  But, as you have picked up on, civil disputes were treated differently.  Commercial disputes, provided that they did not implicate the State, were settled between merchant's guilds or family groups/clans.

What seems to be striking about the system as it has come into being today is that criminal acts are always dealt with quickly and harshly.  Looking at the series of arrests for gang activity in 重慶recently, the government rounded up hundreds of men (I think, without notice), identified the ring leaders, judged them guilty, and probably already shot them.  (Its unclear what they have done with the ones who are either innocent or guilty of lesser crimes)  This has all happened in a few weeks.  The same type of case in the US, especially involving a capital punishment issue, would take a few years before the Defendants were found guilty, and then maybe 5-10 years for an execution, if available in the sentencing State.

One other note: virtually all laws in China were set aside during the Cultural Revolution, and only around the late 1970's, and early 1980's did courts begin to function again.  Considerable International pressure form States wishing to do business with China have pushed the Chinese government to create laws that resemble Western Concepts of Justice.  Personally, although I'm not a huge fan of a 3 week "probably cause" to "execution" timeline, I'm not sure that the West has any right to dictate how China should formulate their laws.  Chinese intellectuals are now beginning to be respected and protected again in China.  There is a rich history to draw from both in China and the West, so it seems like the West should try harder to accomodate Chinese concepts of justice as they eveolve within the State.  As with all good bodies of thought/law/philosophy, this will take time.  Hopefully, both the people (who ultimately pay the price of an insufficient system of justice) and the government (who recognizes that without the will of the people and the Mandate of Heaven, they will eventually fall) will arrive at a reasonable system of justice in pace with their economic growth.

Pan Shan