Shen Jiaben (, 1840 – 1913), alias Jiyi (), was a Late

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

Chinese politician and jurist from

Huzhou Huzhou (, ; Huzhounese: ''ghou² cieu¹'') is a prefecture-level city in northern Zhejiang province (Hangzhou–Jiaxing–Huzhou Plain, China). Lying south of the Lake Tai, it borders Jiaxing to the east, Hangzhou to the south, and the provinc ...

, Zhejiang province. Shen became a jinshi in 1883. He had been once the Prefect of Tianjin during 1893–7, then the Vice Minister of Justice. He was appointed to be the Secretary of Enactment (修訂法律大臣 or 修律大臣) together with Wu Tingfang. He requested the throne to reorganize the Codification Office into the Enactment Office. He led the translations of foreign laws there after it was ratified. Shen and Wu were in charge of the 1905 revision of the

Qing Code The Great Qing Legal Code (or Great Ching Legal Code), also known as the Qing Code (Ching Code) or, in Hong Kong law, as the ''Ta Tsing Leu Lee'' (大清律例), was the legal code of the Qing empire (1644–1912). The code was based on the Ming ...

, abolishing several cruel means of punishment such as "slow slicing" (

lingchi ''Lingchi'' (; ), translated variously as the slow process, the lingering death, or slow slicing, and also known as death by a thousand cuts, was a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly 900 CE up until the practice ended aro ...

). Besides, they established Imperial Law College (京師法律學堂) in 1906. Shen served as the Minister of Justice during 1911–12, in the

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

of Yuan Shikai. The first part of his ''Posthumous Works of Mr. Shen Jiyi'' ��寄簃先生遺書is deemed to be a monograph of great importance on the history of Chinese law.

Cited works

References

Qing dynasty politicians from Zhejiang 1840 births 1913 deaths Politicians from Huzhou Scholars of Chinese law Legal writers Writers from Huzhou Qing dynasty writers Chinese reformers {{China-politician-stub