The implications of the Ayun case for modern justiceFrom a legal point of view, the facts of the Ayun case are relatively simple: a little girl was dissatisfied with the fiancé arranged for her by her family and wanted to hack him to death, but only cut off a little finger. The case was fiercely debated at the time, and many experts and scholars in the field of legal history are still studying it today.
The Great Song Civilization Behind the Ayun Case starts from a point and makes a panoramic and in-depth analysis of the law-making of the Song Dynasty. In addition, it also involves a lot of other knowledge of the Song Dynasty, such as legal education, the imperial examination system, the judicial system, and so on.
To understand this case, two key issues need to be addressed. The first is its nature, whether it belongs to the "ten heinous" crimes of the time. The "Ten Evils" crimes are the ten most egregious crimes in feudal society, and the fourth of them is "evil rebellion". The wife and husband belong to the evil rebellion, and the evil rebellion does not apply to voluntary surrender, as long as the evil rebellion is committed, the crime is unforgivable, and the punishment cannot be exempted because of the voluntary surrender. However, because Ah Yun belongs to "marriage in violation of the law", she is still in mourning, and her marriage is invalid, so her ** behavior does not belong to evil rebellion, and she is a mortal crime, that is, an ordinary person's crime.
The second question is whether a mortal crime is applicable to voluntary surrender. The Song Dynasty's voluntary surrender was also divided into several situations, and generally voluntary surrender was to be exempted from punishment, which refers to surrendering before the case was discovered. The discovery here is different from today's discovery and refers to denunciation. For example, in the Ayun case, if Ayun's fiancé directly identified Ayun as cutting him, this is called a denunciation;But Ah Yun's fiancé did not identify her, so he has not reported it, so it is a general surrender.
At the same time, the criminal code of the Song Dynasty, the "Song Criminal Code", has a special voluntary surrender provision in addition to the general voluntary surrender, that is, although the criminal did not voluntarily surrender, if he "knew that the person wanted to sue" and "pre-reported outside the case", that is, in the case of ordinary government interrogation, and the suspect has not been locked as a suspect and has not been impeached, although the general voluntary surrender is not applicable, the punishment can be reduced by two degrees. Xu Zun then sentenced Ah Yun from hanging to exile on the basis of this article.
However, there is an exclusionary provision in the Song Criminal Code in addition to ordinary voluntary surrender: that is, if the victim has already been injured, voluntary surrender is not applicable. In order to give the offender a chance to atone for his crimes, the "Song Criminal Code" also stipulates that although the offender causes injuries to the victim, he can "be exempted from the crime for which he was caused" if he surrenders himself. This case caused an uproar in the DPRK and China, and the core point of contention was whether and how to apply this supplementary provision. Wang Anshi and Sima Guang had a fierce disagreement about this. The specific process is analyzed in great detail by the writer Gao Honglei in the book, and in history, everyone has mainly debated this issue repeatedly to this day.
Some readers may ask, if a case like the Ayun case had happened today, how would it have been judged?Here we need to know that ancient law is different from modern law, and one of the key points repeatedly expounded in the book is the thinking of the rule of law, and the thinking of the rule of law requires people to punish according to specific legal provisions and historical situations.
In addition, it is written in the book that the Song Dynasty was mainly selected through the imperial examination. At that time, the imperial examination system stipulated that if you wanted to become a legal practitioner in the Song Dynasty, after taking the Jinshi examination, you had to go through an important assessment - legal assessment, which was also a feature of the Song Dynasty's ** selection, appointment and dismissal mechanism, with special emphasis on the ability to solve practical problems. This is somewhat different from the Tang Dynasty. "Song Criminal Rule" and "Tang Law Shu Yi" is basically the same, so Tang Law can be said to be from the beginning of the seventh century AD to the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, the actual use of about 600 years, of course, the Song Dynasty on the basis of the Tang Dynasty and some of its own innovation and development, such as the imperial examination system, the Tang Dynasty is more important to examine poetry and songs, literary accomplishment;The Song Dynasty, on the other hand, paid special attention to practical ability, that is, the ability to solve practical problems. This point also has a very important enlightenment for us today, because today's civil service examination also has to test the application essay, vocational ability test, and so on, and the scope is very wide. If you want to be a leading cadre, you will generally have to be assessed for your knowledge of the law.
Regarding the "Song Criminal System", there is a very important principle called "original heart conviction", which has a strong reference significance for the Ayun case. The original conviction is based on the psychological state of the offender at the time of the crime. In today's judicial trial process, the specific circumstances of the offender's crime and criminal psychology are also one of the factors to be considered in conviction and sentencing. This is also true today, and in ancient times its regulations had their own characteristics.