Articles

Tang Laws Causing Property Damage

Vostok/Oriens '2015, №2

 
Legal norms which set penalties for crimes against property always bear the strong imprint of the culture within which they were formed. In this regard we can consider extremely interesting prescriptions of traditional Chinese law related to socially undesirable acts causing premeditated or unintended transferring or destroying of property. Typically these acts should be punished according to the norms developed for mid-level officials who have committed misappropriation of a property while executing their duties. Comparison of criminal situations in which these rules of criminal law must be applied shows how wide was at that time an idea of the performance of social duties by the members of society. It also shows the fact that property crime was not considered as unjust enrichment of the criminal, but rather as unlawful movement of material values.

Keywords: traditional society, the state and the law, criminal laws, property crimes, ideology

Pages: С. 33–42