Abstract
This article’s main purpose is to invite discussion on a person-centered approach to assess the Chinese legal history of the 20th century. To be more specific, building upon the recent studies of legal changes during the late Qing and the Republic of China that have focused on the figure of Shen Jiaben 沈家本, this article interprets the diary entries of political leaders (such as Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石) and of the highest judicial leadership (such as Ju Zheng 居正, the longest-serving President of the Judicial Yuan 司法院; and Xie Guansheng 謝冠生, who was both the longest-serving Minister of Judicial Administration in mainland China, and then the longest-serving President of the Judicial Yuan in Taiwan). The voluminous and long-running nature of these diaries opens a new vantage point for legal historians to understand and analyze the dynamics underlying the wide array of major decisions and policy formation that determined the course of judicial reform in the mid-20th century. Therewith, this article invites more scholarly attention to the seven decades of China-centered legal history (1901-1971) and to the handwritten diary entries which have not been available to researchers until very recently.
Keywords
Seven Decades (1901-1971) of Legal Reform, Chiang Kai-shek Diaries, Ju Zheng Diaries, Xie Guansheng Diaries, the Chinese legal history of the 20th century
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