Abstract
In local judicial review in the Ming Dynasty, the Provincial Administration Commission (Buzhengsi 布政司 )and the Provincial Surveillance Commission (Anchasi 按察司) reported to the Bureau of Punishments (Xingbu 刑部 ) and the Censorate (Duchayuan 都察院 )respectively according to the regulations in the Handbook of Government Offices (Zhusi Zhizhang 諸司職掌). This system remained unchanged during the Ming Dynasty. The “Levels of Officials [Authorized to] Carry out the Sentences of Prisoners” regulation in the Great Ming Code (Da Ming lü 大明律) was adopted in the early years of the Ming in imitation of the system of the Yuan Dynasty, but it was not the actual system utilized in practice. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the Touring Censorial Inspector (Xun’anyushi 巡按御史)had three ways to participate in local judicial review: accepting cases and reporting to the Censorate; joint trial and reporting; and reporting to the throne. The Bureau of Punishments and the Censorate divided the labor according to the reporting channel rather than the identity of the criminal. These “two parallel systems of judicial review” made the judicial structure in the Ming Dynasty different from those of the Yuan and Qing Dynasties.
Keywords
Ming Dynasty, Local judicial review, Bureau of Punishments (Xingbu), Censorate, Touring Censorial Inspector (Xunanyushi)
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