Seeking the traces of law

Author: Yu Dingyu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: What is law? This has been the question that the author has been pursuing. He follows the traces of law and embarks on a great spiritual journey: by examining the concept of prior appropriation of bananas discovered by the Nilotic Pygmies, he confirms the primitive footprints of human law—“rights”; through the judgment of Athena in Greek mythology based on human nature, he declares the natural theological sentiment and religious sensibility of the ancient Greeks; through the scales and sword-wielding, blindfolded goddess of justice, he reveals the ancient Romans' aspiration for law to be mature and steady, fair and just; through Beccaria's discussions on legal certainty, proportionality between crime and punishment, and humane punishment, he reflects the humanitarian brilliance and philosophical passion of this genius; through the Magna Carta that forced King John to bow his noble head, and the German King William I who submitted to judicial rulings and compensated the common people according to law, as well as the modern case of the Hawaiian palm suing the government, he declares the supremacy of civil liberties and rights; through the globally sensational Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals, he validates the concept that bad laws are not law, that positive law is subordinate to natural law, and the social justice it conveys; through the Los Angeles police beating of a Black man and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, he declares the principle of race-blind justice and brotherhood; through the U.S. Miranda rule and the shocking Simpson case, he declares the right of citizens not to incriminate themselves, the principle of innocent until proven guilty, and the value conflicts and choices between individual justice and social order, and so on. The engaging legal stories, accompanied by numerous oil paintings and photographs of historical sites and original documents filled with traditional charm and a great call to action, paint a grand historical panorama: it is precisely these figures of different identities and extraordinary events that have nurtured the fundamental principles and rules of the contemporary Western legal system. The author's research on the historical connections between them is meticulous and precise.
In ancient times, looking back at the Earth, our ancestors were merely a group of strange, hairy monsters. They wandered under the same sky every day, struggling hard and suffering, yet always free and equal. After hundreds of years of arduous evolution, in the extreme harshness of survival competition, these former barbarians had been constantly struggling to learn how to be human. Generation after generation, they not only maintained their innate freedom and equality, but gradually learned the highest principles of fairness and justice for social harmony. Thus, year after year, day after day, among these early humans, something we now call law had already been created.
A legal scholar once said, "The purpose of law is not to abolish or limit people's freedom, but to protect and expand it." Another legal scholar once remarked, "Law is humanity's greatest invention. Other inventions teach humans to tame nature, but the invention of law teaches humans how to tame themselves."
Today, the global trend of the rule of law has turned into waves of surging. And the Chinese people, after a century of long and painful exploration, have finally stood at the historic threshold of judicial reform, constitutionalism, and the rule of law. The modernization of Chinese law must accelerate, and China's legal system must align with the advanced global trends. This is both a strong dream pursued by countless outstanding Chinese scholars and reformers over the past 100 years, and today, it has become an irresistible historical trend.
At this moment, we might as well step out of our borders once again, open our eyes to the world, and travel to the far corners of the earth to explore the legal stories of different countries and the spirit of the rule of law in human history.
Some say that legal studies is a great labyrinth. But in fact, it is a guide for the human soul. As long as you are willing to look and listen with heart, and remember to lift your head from the maze occasionally to gaze at the stars, you will discover how the legal ideals of freedom and equality, and fairness and justice, have everlastingly illuminated the past of human history, and how they will continue to illuminate—our great nation's future.