CRIMINAL PROCEDURE IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA: SOCIALIST, CIVILIAN OR TRADITIONAL?

2010 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 1099-1127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Yin ◽  
Peter Duff

Taxonomy, as a methodological tool introduced from natural science, brought the categorization of legal systems to comparative law.1The term ‘legal family’2is normally used as a metaphor, because it recognizes that within each grouping there are many variations. Each of the legal families is regarded as a combination of fundamental features of legal systems which have certain similarities. As an analytical device, taxonomy renders the comparison of different laws and legal institutions manageable by means of simplifying or abstracting the diverse and complicated realities of a myriad of legal systems. As a result, the concept of legal families acts as a support for legal borrowing and transplantation, as well as comprising an inevitable part of most comparative law works. Even where as few as two jurisdictions are involved, the categorization of legal families is still a useful tool for most comparative legal analysis. Assisted by the notion of legal families, comparativists can readily understand and explore an unfamiliar legal system.3Normally, such scholars tend to accept the conventional or widely accepted categorization of a particular legal system as belonging to a certain legal family. However, without detailed scrutiny of the first-hand material, distortions may arise as a result of preconceptions held at the beginning of the comparative study.4

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-458
Author(s):  
Luca Siliquini-Cinelli

AbstractThis paper expounds some critical reflections on Pierre Legrand's recent account of James Gordley's and James Whitman's comparative methodologies. Pushing his unconventional writing style to the limits and labelling Gordley's ‘positivist’ and Whitman's ‘cultural’ comparative law, Legrand's piece appears to be taking the first step towards a new, more sensitive phase for the comparative study of law and legal cultures. The paper argues that, contrary to what might be first thought, Legrand's ‘sensitive epistemology’ cannot act as a gateway to cultural otherness. This is because it is wholly in line with the constructivist objectification of life that characterises the study and practice of law both within and outside the comparative-law dimension.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Farihan Aulia ◽  
Sholahuddin Al-Fatih

The legal system or commonly referred to as the legal tradition, has a wealth of scientific treasures that can be examined in more depth through a holistic and comprehensive comparative process. Exactly, the comparison of the legal system must accommodate at least three legal systems that are widely used by countries in the world today. The three legal systems are the Continental European legal system, Anglo American and Islamic Law. The comparative study of the three types of legal systems found that the history of the Continental European legal system is divided into 6 phases, while Anglo American legal history began in the feudalistic era of England until it developed into America and continues to be studied until now. Meanwhile, the history of Islamic law is divided into 5 phases, starting from the Phase of the Prophet Muhammad to the Resurrection Phase (19th century until nowadays). In addition to history, the authors find that the Continental European legal system has the characteristic of anti-formalism thinking, while the Anglo American legal thinking characteristic tends to be formalism and is based on a relatively primitive mindset. While the thinking character of Islamic Law is much influenced by the thought of the fuqoha (fiqh experts) in determining the law to solve a problem, so relatively dynamic and moderate.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 267
Author(s):  
Nader Ghanbari ◽  
Hassan Mohseni ◽  
Dawood Nassiran

Comparing the legal systems is a specific method in which due to its important function is considered as a separate branch in law. None of the branches in law can place its knowledge merely on ideas and findings within the national borders. Several basic objections have been given regarding the definition and purpose of comparative study in civil procedure. In addition there are specific problems regarding studying practically the similar systems in a legal system like differences in purpose, definition and concept. In different legal systems like civil law and common law systems in which there is a divergence, even the judicial system`s organs and judges` appointment and judicial formalism are different, which add to the problems of the comparative study. Reviewing these differences could lead to a better understanding of these legal systems and recognizing the common principles in making use of each other`s findings considering these differences and indicate the obstacles of comparative study in this regard.


2021 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 04011
Author(s):  
Marina Sergeevna Kolosovich ◽  
Lyudmila Vladimirovna Popova ◽  
Anna Fedorovna Zotova ◽  
Maria Mikhailovna Bondar ◽  
Olga Sergeevna Shamshina

Over the years, most of the Russian processualists denied the investigator’s right to engage in actions of covert nature and deemed it impossible to integrate the norms of criminal intelligence legislation in the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation adopted on 18.12.2001 No. 174-FZ, rightly referring to the impossibility to vest a single duty-bearer engaged in a preliminary investigation with unprecedented powers. Meanwhile, the latest decades have been marked by active legislative activity in many countries, which in fact has turned covert criminal intelligence and surveillance into a procedural activity. These innovations became specific of a number of countries regardless of their legal system belonging to the Romano-Germanic or Anglo-Saxon legal system, testifying to more profound roots of the problem. The study is also relevant in terms of dissatisfaction, expressed by the Russian law-enforcement authorities, with the crime solvency rate and with the interaction of criminal intelligence detectives and internal affairs investigators. The goal of the study is to identify the procedural provisions governing the investigator’s covert-nature activities and related law enforcement problems. The methodological framework of the research comprises general and particular methods of scientific knowledge: dialectical, systemic, deductive, inductive; synthesis, analysis; comparative legal analysis, statistical and other methods. Results and novelty: it was concluded that the Code of Criminal Procedure provides for the regulation of the investigator’s confidential-nature activities inherent in covert criminal intelligence and surveillance and requiring more detailed elaboration, as concerns the issues of securing the rights of partakers of the said activity; the authors express doubt regarding the justification of the legislator’s differentiation of covert activities under criminal cases into covert investigative actions (Art. 185, 186, 186.1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) and covert operational and investigative operations that are in fact identical to the former (Art. 6, Cl. 9-11 of the Russian Federation Federal Law No. 144-FZ as of 12.08.1995 “On criminal intelligence and surveillance”.


Author(s):  
Jacques Du Plessis

Legal systems generally are ‘mixed’ in the sense that they have been influenced by a variety of other systems. However, while some legal systems, for a period of time at least, reach a certain level of uniformity, the diversity or ‘mixedness’ of the origins of other systems is more pronounced. This chapter deals with the experiences of the latter systems, and especially with their relevance to the discipline of comparative law. The focus is first on the concept of a mixed legal system, as well as related concepts, such as legal pluralism and hybridity, that have gained prominence in comparative analyses. Thereafter key questions that arise from these analyses are then considered in detail. These questions include how the mixed nature of legal systems is to be dealt with in representations of legal diversity of the world, how mixed legal systems are formed, and what could be learned from their experiences.


Author(s):  
Michele Graziadei

The comparative study of transplants and receptions investigates contacts of legal cultures and explores the complex patterns of change triggered by them. The study of legal transfers offers considerable intellectual rewards. It shows that the law is a complex phenomenon and corrects simplistic views regarding what law is and how it develops. The spread of legal institutions, ideals, ideologies, doctrines, rules, and so on, is often in the hands of professional elites. The study of transplants and receptions demonstrates that the knowledge and standing of those elites comes from interactions between the local and non-local dimensions of the law, that is, between the national and international spheres. This picture is true in Berlin and in New York, in London and in Lima, but it is also true in less cosmopolitan environments.


1992 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-264
Author(s):  
Gerard C. Rowe ◽  
Rob Brian

Common Law systems have always practiced a fairly consistent comparative legal research and scholarship. Initially through the mere exportation of rules and principles from England this was a somewhat centripetal comparative law but it has passed through various modes of radial, circumferential, centrifugal and ultimately polycentric comparisons and cross-fertilizations. Nevertheless, this exercise in comparative law, also in Australia, has remained largely within the boundaries of the Common Law world. It is no longer possible for legal research to be conducted wholly within the boundaries of a single legal system, even that of the enlarged Common Law. Legal researchers need to look beyond the borders of their own jurisdictions. Hardly any legal system today is capable of operating without international interactions requiring a knowledge of foreign legal systems, and many legal problems, or socio-economic problems which law must help to solve, may find useful models elsewhere. In Australia there are needs for reform in fields such as intellectual property, banking or consumer law, and for providing qualified advice including predictions of developments in foreign legal systems to ensure that foreign commerce and trade is fully informed of potential benefits and disadvantages to be found under foreign law. Australia must also be able to take its proper place in fields such as international environmental protection, and to take advantage of potentially beneficial developments in dispute resolution techniques. All of these situations are ones in which, by looking outside their national and even Common Law framework, Australian legal researchers will be better placed to provide concrete benefits to Australian society.


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