[
    {
        "id": 209466,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1982",
        "page_number": 123,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "101\n\nlawyers two months training in \"New Democracy\" and placing them under Communist cadres.\n\nWhen the People's Political Consultative Conference, organized by the victorious Chinese Communist Party, issued its \"Common Programme\" formally establishing the People's Republic in September 1949, it also adopted an Organic Law of the Central People's Government, Article 5 of this document provided for a Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate, but no action was taken on the establishment of a system of lower courts until September 1951. In fact, during this period, civil and criminal courts left over from the Kuomintang period continued to function alongside military, revolutionary, and people's tribunals. Article 17 of the Common Programme had done away with the six codes of the Kuomintang, but new laws were published in rapid order, some 3,452 of them by September of 1954, including major laws dealing with land reform, marriage, the punishment of counter-revolutionaries and corruption. However, no systematic codes were issued and there were many gaps in areas which lawmakers in most societies would consider of prime importance, including such crimes as homicide. When appropriate laws and regulations were lacking, judges were supposed to use the general policies of Mao's \"New Democracy.\" Such ambiguity naturally led to great inconsistency in judgments, and judges were forced to make wide use of analogy even to the point of secretly basing their decisions on Kuomintang legal precedent.\n\nIn the autumn of 1952 a National Judicial Conference was called to launch a reform of the courts. By the time the movement came to an end in April 1953, many former Kuomintang officials had been removed from the judicial system, but the problem of judicial decision making continued to persist. A Chinese Political Science and Law Association was established in the spring of 1953 which in May of the following year began publishing its national legal journal, Zhengfa yanjiu [Researches in Political Science and Law]. At the same time, a special legal publishing house was established and began producing annual collections of laws. Several law schools or institutes for training judicial cadres were also opened. Finally a second National\n\n--",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209467,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1982",
        "page_number": 124,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "102\n\nW. ALLYN RICKETT\n\nJudicial Conference was held for the primary purpose of regulating local courts and local court-affiliated organizations such as neighbourhood mediation and factory-based comrade adjudication committees.\n\nBy the end of 1953, the Chinese Communists announced that the period of reconstruction was coming to an end, the \"New Democratic\" phase of the revolution was complete, and it was time to start the building of socialism. In September 1954, a new constitution was promulgated which established a new government under a National People's Congress (NPC) and provided the basis for a judicial system, which in administering justice, was supposed to be independent, subject only to law. There was a standard list of rights for citizens including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press. Although this did not prevent a repressive campaign against intellectuals and the arrest of the writer Hu Feng in 1955, in general the 1954 Constitution set the stage for what was to be the most constructive period for legal development in China during the first 30 years of the People's Republic. Provision was made for a Ministry of Justice responsible for the general administration of justice and the training of judicial cadres, and for a procuratorate which was to review recommendations from public security offices concerning the arrest of suspected criminals, and which would also prosecute cases before the court. The procuratorate was also charged with ensuring that the activities of government complied with the law, and investigating and prosecuting serious crimes committed by state officials. Malfeasance involving officials was also investigated by a Ministry of Supervision, an organ which was later eliminated. However, the investigation of Party members was the prerogative of Party control commissions.\n\n\"The Organic Law of the People's Courts,\" adopted by the NPC at the same time as the Constitution, spelled out in more detail some of the basic provisions of the Constitution, providing, for example, that in \"adjudicating cases the people's courts shall apply the law equally to all citizens irrespective of their nationality, race, sex, occupation, social origin, religious belief, educational standard, property status, and length of residence.\" It also stated that cases \"shall be heard in public unless otherwise provided for",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
        "rank": 0
    }
]