Comparative law and Chinese legal tradition: through the lens of judicial precedent

This chapter discusses the importance of Chinese law to future comparative law studies. The importance of Chinese law may be attributable to a number of different reasons. The task is, however, not to produce a full list of reasons, but to set the stage for a close look at one of them, namely the continuity of some elements of a legal tradition that has run its course for thousands of years. To illustrate how heritage in the long past might continue to shape the present, this chapter addresses the precedent system in the Qing Dynasty, outlining some of its most salient features and exploring its links to the present-day equivalent. Chapter seeks to bridge the temporal gap between the Qing system and the precedent system in China today. Knowing the past, it hopes, will not only improve understanding of the present, but also facilitate, to a more limited extent, the prediction of the future.