Application of the great qing code in 2nd half of the 18th c. - 1st half of the 19th c. legal practice

Bachelor Thesis topic: ‚Application of the Great Qing Code in 2nd Half of the 18th c. - 1st Half of the 19th c. Legal Practice‘. Qing dynasty (1644-1912) – ethnic Manchu‘s dynasty, that has adopted previous dynasty‘s Ming Code into their own - The Great Qing Code. The main question that I intend to answer: how was The Great Qing Code put into practice, while solving society‘s legal problems and on what terms qing 情 and li 理 terminology has been used in legal reasoning? The major objective of my thesis was to analyse legal cases that fall into rather controversial categories of the civil and criminal law, as well as the case precedents and appellated rulings. I intend to do so, in order to answer the question, how did judicial officers interpret the Code, how did they perceive categories of what is legal/illegal and what terminology has been assigned to it. Moreover, I have tried to grasp the practice of naming the violation by The Great Qing Code and legal reasoning behind the judicial decisions, as well as the complicating factors. In order to answer these questions, I had applied hermeneutic and semantic analysis on legal cases. My main focus in it was the criteria by which legal cases have been composed, as well as main questions asked, during the interrogation processes and terminology that has been used. I may conclude that qing and li terminology has been directly used in civil cases to define, whether or not specific violation qualify for litigation process. It may as well mark a distinction between, what is legal and what is not. The same principle may be recognized in cases categorized as criminal, yet it may not be directly examined by applying the same technique as in civil cases. This particular Bachelor Thesis may be helpful for researchers that intend to analyse the practical aspect of the Qing law as well as the reasoning and techniques behind it. It may as well be useful in further analyses of the controversial application of civil and criminal terminology on the traditional Chinese law, legal/illegal reasoning and qing/ li terms