The establishment of the judicial institutions in the Qin Dynasty reflected three aspects of power constraints
The Qin Dynasty was the initial stage of China's feudal centralized system, and built a unified political system led by the emperor and coordinated with each other.
Although the boundary between the executive power and the judicial power is not clear, and problems such as the intertwining of functions and powers, the plurality of government departments, and the overlapping of institutions continue to appear, the concept of separation of powers and checks and balances has been clearly reflected in the setting of judicial organs at the highest level and at the local level.
This has been concretely reflected in the setting of the judicial organs of the Qin Dynasty. The setting of the ** judicial institution with "restraint and power" as the core, the ** official system of the Qin Dynasty can be summarized by "three princes and nine secretaries".
Among them, the prime minister is the highest-ranking chief executive, who has the responsibility of the prime minister's administrative affairs, and has the power to appoint and dismiss officials, impeach cases and punish hundreds of officials, attend planning and examination classes, assemble for deliberations, and refute reprimands.
Since the establishment of the prime ministership system, rulers have been concerned about the weight of their powers and responsibilities and the number of ministry, so they have taken constant measures to disperse and restrain it. As early as the reign of King Wu of Qin, there was an attempt to set up left and right prime ministers, aiming to "weaken the power of the prime minister and facilitate the control of the monarch".
After the Qin Dynasty unified the six countries, the fear of power reached a new height. Qin Shi Huang was well aware that the prime minister's excessive power posed a threat to the monarchy, so he always maintained a high degree of vigilance.
In order to eliminate the threat of the prime minister's power to the imperial power, the Qin Dynasty took other measures and established the position of imperial historian to divide and restrict the relative power. The Imperial Historian was established after the Qin Dynasty unified the Six Kingdoms, and was the leader of all the Imperial History, second only to the Prime Minister.
His duty was to "inherit the morals of the dynasty internally, and to manage the world externally", which gave him the power to consult and make decisions in administrative matters, which was almost the same as the power of the prime minister.
The purpose of the establishment of the Imperial Historian was to restrain power and achieve a balance between powers. Although the prime minister is the prime minister of the country's affairs and has great power, it is easy to influence the rule of the imperial power.
As a close confidant of the emperor, the imperial historian has always been trusted by the emperor. In major political events, such as the "Book Burning and Confucianism" case, the First Emperor sent the imperial historian to investigate the case of the students; Qin II sent the Imperial History Qu Palace to take a chariot to deal with Meng Yi and other incidents, all of which showed the special status of the Imperial Historian as a close confidant of the emperor.
Therefore, as a closer and lower status of the imperial historian, he became the best person to limit the power of the prime minister.
The Qin Dynasty set up imperial historians and reused them to reduce the status of the prime minister in the management of administrative affairs, and realize the division and supervision of the prime minister's power, so that power was constantly transferred to the emperor's close ministers who were easy to control, and the monarch was strengthened and the centralization of power was consolidated.
The establishment of county-level judicial institutions in the Qin Dynasty was also for the purpose of "separation of powers, checks and balances". Different from the Han Dynasty, the county guard of the Qin Dynasty was not a "unitary system" of governors, but distributed the power of a county to different counties in the county, forming a local administrative organization model of "three governments standing side by side" of guards, captains and supervisors.
The powers between the three are not strictly separated, but the county warden and the county supervisor share judicial power, and the county lieutenant and the county supervisor share military power, ensuring that the affairs of the county are not arbitrarily dictated by any party, forming a power system that checks each other.
The original intention of setting up the county supervisor and the imperial history was to prevent the county guard from monopolizing power and maintaining the centralization of power. In particular, for the supervision of the judicial power in the county, the decentralization and restraint function of the county supervisor and imperial history has been fully demonstrated.
In the county-level judicial institutions of the Qin Dynasty, the county guard did not seek advice from the Supervisor in the process of handling the case, and did not transfer the case to the Supervisor after the case was handled.
This means that although the Imperial Governor has the power to review all judicial cases in the county, he does not have actual judicial power in the trial of specific cases, such as trials and judgments.
The main responsibility of the Imperial Historian is to review the files of judicial cases in the county, and to supervise the judicial trials of the county. In the setting of the county-level judicial organs in the Qin Dynasty, the responsibilities of the county warden, the supervisor of the imperial history, and the county law enforcer often overlapped and confused, resulting in the decentralization of power and the multiplicity of government departments.
Although the Qin Dynasty county system was flawed, this actually reflected the prevention of the concentration of local power. Considering the wide scope of the county's jurisdiction and the increasing power in its hands, the Qin rulers were unable to concentrate all power in the hands of a single person to prevent the formation of local separatist forces that threatened to centralize power.
In order to limit the power of the county guard, the Qin Dynasty implemented a decentralization strategy at the administrative level of the county, dispersing the power of a county to a number of different officials, so as to achieve checks and balances in the system design, which fully reflected the implementation of the Qin ruler's concept of power constraints.
In the county-level judicial organs, both the county magistrate and the county governor have the power to handle judicial cases, while the county lieutenant has the power to handle judicial cases only when he is appointed as a county magistrate, and his judicial power is mainly reflected in the arrest of criminals in major criminal cases.
In general, the judicial powers of the prefectural magistrate, the prefectural magistrate, and the prefectural lieutenant are roughly the same as recorded in the literature.
In the Qin Dynasty, the county-level judicial power structure was dominated by the county magistrate and the county magistrate, and the county lieutenant was responsible for arresting criminals. This distribution of power is similar to the AB role work system in modern administrative positions, which can avoid job vacancies and vacancies.
The county was the most basic administrative unit in the Qin Dynasty, responsible for the functions of conscription, taxation, household registration management, military, production, etc., and was the center of local administration. Due to the complexity of administrative work, there are often shortages.
For example, the "Chronicles of the Former Tomb Officials" records the situation of "three chief officials, two of whom are missing".
Although such an arrangement may have an impact on the handling of judicial affairs, the allocation of posts such as Ling and Cheng can effectively prevent job vacancies and lack of responsibilities and ensure the smooth progress of judicial work.
At the same time, this system also imposes a check on the judicial power. If the judicial power is excessively centralized, it will lead to corruption and the expansion of local power, which will undermine the authority of **.
Reorganized and polished copywriting: By giving the county more judicial powers, it successfully prevented the situation of excessive concentration and solidification of power, and at the same time, it also avoided the power structure of the county order being dominated by one person.
This approach has established an effective mechanism of checks and balances in the operation of judicial power at the county level.