[1] Confucians believed in the fundamental goodness of man and advocated rule by moral persuasion in accordance with the concept of li (propriety), a set of generally accepted social values or norms of behavior.
Legalism, a competing school of thought during the Warring States period (475-221 BCE), maintained that man was by nature evil and had to be controlled by strict rules of law and uniform justice.
The Han dynasty (206 BCE – CE 220) retained the basic legal system established under the Qin but modified some of the harsher aspects in line with the Confucian philosophy of social control based on ethical and moral persuasion.
Whereas Western law stressed stability, Mao sought constant change, emphasized the contradictions in society, and called for relentless class struggle.
Neighborhood committees and work units, supervised by local officials, used peer pressure to handle most legal problems in consonance with current central policies.
These cadres favored the Maoist system of social and political control and regarded themselves as supervisors of the masses who subscribed to a common set of communist values.
In 1949, the CCP abolished all Kuomintang laws and judicial organs and established the Common Program, a statement of national purposes adopted by a September 1949 session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, as a provisional constitution.
The period 1949-52 was one of national integration in the wake of decades of disunity, turmoil, and war, and included efforts to bring the diverse elements of a disrupted society into line with the new political direction of the state.
Kuomintang-era judges were purged from the courts, and those who remained, having been tacitly cleared of charges of "flagrant counterrevolution" and sworn to uphold the mass line in judicial work, continued to press for a more regularized Soviet-style legal system.
The state constitution promulgated in September 1954 attempted to set down in legal form the central tasks of the country in the transition period of the mid-1950s and to regulate China's strides toward socialism.
The 1954 state constitution gave the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress the power to appoint and dismiss judicial personnel and to enact legal codes.
The state constitution protected individuals from arrest and detention unless approved by the people's procuratorates, and it granted citizens freedom of speech, correspondence, demonstration, and religious belief.
After 1960, during a brief period of ascendancy of the political moderates, there was some emphasis on rebuilding the judicial sector, but the Cultural Revolution nullified most of the progress that had been made under the 1954 state constitution.
[citation needed] The National People's Congress theoretically was still empowered to enact laws, select and reject state officials, and direct the judiciary.
Impromptu trials were conducted either by a police officer on the spot, by a revolutionary committee (the local government body established during the Cultural Revolution decade), or by a mob.
Following the death of Mao in September 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four less than a month later, the government took its first steps to set aside the 1975 state constitution and restore the pre-Cultural Revolution legal system.
The changes, effective as of January 1, 1980, reflected the leadership's conviction that if economic modernization was to succeed, the people—who had suffered through the humiliations, capricious arrests, and massive civil disorders of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76)—had to be assured that they no longer would be abused or incarcerated on the basis of hearsay or arbitrary political pronouncements.
According to the recommendations, Chinese courts in the future would base their judgments on the law, while continuing to "work under unified leadership of the local party committees."
Peng Zhen, director of the Legal Affairs Commission and active in the reform efforts of the early 1960s, announced the new laws in June 1979 and had them published shortly thereafter.
In November 1979 Peng was appointed secretary general of the Standing Committee of the Fifth National People's Congress, a position from which he could control the reconstruction of the legal system.
The use of mediation committees – informed groups of citizens who resolve about 90 percent of China's civil disputes and some minor criminal cases at no cost to the parties – is one innovative device.
The primary motivation has been to limit arbitrary behavior by powerful officials and to provide standards for managing social, economic and political relationships, including foreign investment.
As Peng Zhen pointed out in late 1979, because "most contradictions were among the people," involving constructive criticism not antagonistic to the party or state, punishment was inappropriate (see Chinese intellectualism).
It also established a statute of limitations both to demonstrate the "humanitarian spirit" of the penal code and to permit law enforcement officials to concentrate on crimes for which evidence was still available.
From the perspective of the leaders of the CCP, moreover, codified laws and a strengthened legal system were seen as important means of preventing a possible return of radical policies and a repetition of the era when the Gang of Four ruled by fiat and inconsistent party regulations.
Procuratorates, which had fallen into disuse during the Cultural Revolution, were reinstituted to prosecute criminal cases, review court decisions, and investigate the legality of actions taken by the police and other government organizations.
The state Constitution also delineated the fundamental rights and duties of citizens, including protection from defamation of character, illegal arrest or detention, and unlawful search.
Any Chinese citizen with the right to vote who has passed a professional competency test after formal training or after two to three years of experience in legal work could qualify as a lawyer.
In fact the term changed into "crimes of endangering national security" but international scholars agree, that the new headline covers largely the same provisions as in the 1979 criminal law.
[citation needed] On July 1, 1992, in order to meet growing demand, the Chinese government opened the legal services market to foreign law firms allowing them to establish offices in China when the Ministry of Justice and the State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAOIC) issued the Provisional Regulation of Establishment of Offices by Foreign Law Firms regulation.