"When I feel a little bit about the law, there is only half a semester left in the university course. I have some ideas about reading the Ideal of Legal Education. " This lack of confidence in the major is because "the law is as deep as the sea", and the law is too difficult for a dull student like the author to master? Or is there something wrong with law education, which fails to teach us well and requires us to bear the "product responsibility"? This is a question worth discussing. I read the article "The Ideal of Legal Education" by Professor Ge of Peking University Law School (No.2 of Chinese and Foreign Law 20 14) on China HowNet, so I have some thoughts on the above issues.

Professor Ge's article runs through Tsinghua University's memory of Professor He Meihuan, and this article is also a deep respect for the pioneers.

Professor Ge's description of law education in his article is very true and frank: "On the one hand, (mainland students) can talk freely about cutting-edge and profound things; On the other hand, I disdain to learn the basic knowledge, and I only have a thin and poor understanding of the basic knowledge. " "In most courses, as long as students listen carefully and take notes before the exam, they can get good grades." The author also has this feeling in most courses, most of which are only the explanation of knowledge system, and the input of this knowledge system does not seem to require any professional ability-literacy.

The criterion for testing the effectiveness of professional education is whether there is any difference between educated people and uneducated people. I have also participated in many discussion activities, and some strange questions and answers make me doubt whether the tuition fee of 6500 yuan is reasonable. In the face of a case, someone said a conclusion and then put a big hat on it: "This is unfair", "This violates the principle of good faith" and "This violates the legitimate rights and interests"; Some people can say a professional concept: this is breach of contract, this is infringement, this is self-defense, but the interpretation is very chaotic, and the elements of various legal facts are mixed together; There is also a phenomenon that you don't summarize the essential facts at all, but list a bunch of original facts that haven't been "purified" and think you have completed the argument.

To ridicule this phenomenon is by no means that I feel good about myself. There is no similar problem and I am often criticized as "illogical". But it is worth reflecting that a person who has never studied law can do these things. Who can't do the big concepts of "fairness" and "honesty"? Terms such as "breach of contract" and "infringement" are easy to learn, and even illiterate people can do the work of enumerating facts. If the legal work can really be handled according to the above, it will be "obviously unfair" for students to reduce the tuition fees to 650 yuan.

What's the problem? With the word "professional", what are the unique professional qualities of legal persons? We don't understand. Is this the ability to adjudicate cases, legislate or comment? After comparing the legal education in Germany and the United States, Professor Ge proposed: "Legal education should be guided by the ability of judges. Cultivating the ability of judges is mainly to cultivate the knowledge and ability of legalism. " I also deeply agree with this. In short, law is the study of legal interpretation and application under legalism. The application of law is nothing more than building a bridge between law and fact. On the legal side, we need to build a bridge, because the coldness and difficult terms of the law cannot be mastered by literacy alone; On the other hand, we need to bridge the gap, because the original facts are chaotic, and we need to screen and sort out laws and regulations. After reading it, I have some thoughts on Reading the Ideal of Legal Education. When the bridge is built, the situation will be clear. Of course, between these applications, value judgment and benefit measurement are indispensable, but this is not the point. If the explanation is in place, justice will not deviate too much As Professor Ge commented: "Every link of legal interpretation and legal procedure is permeated with the spirit of rule of law. The most ideal legal education is that a legal person, even if he is not idealistic and has both fame and fortune, can carry out the spirit of rule of law when expounding legal issues and explaining legal provisions. On the contrary, if a legal person is passionate about the rule of law, but does not know how to apply it in specific work, he is still not a qualified legal person. "

Reflecting on China's legal education, it is a fact that legal dogmatism is not prosperous and underdeveloped. In my humble opinion, we should never teach undergraduates how to lag behind the existing laws and how to "criticize and innovate". On the contrary, we should teach them the basic theory and the skills of "reading" the law in a down-to-earth way. The basic claim method in civil law and the decomposition method of crime constitution in criminal law are all basic technologies. The author very much agrees with a teacher's point of view: Why is Professor Wang Zejian's basic theory of claim so "respected" in Chinese mainland, but not so popular in Germany and Taiwan? Because these basic methods are so common in countries where legal hermeneutics is prosperous, just like in communist China, everyone has a materialistic mind, so the booklet introducing "material determines consciousness and economic foundation determines superstructure" will not sell well. Having said that, to solve the problem, we should advocate and publicize these basic books, even routines, at this stage.

The problem is found-that is, our professional skills are not good, and the basic routines have not been learned well. What about the solution? Professor Ge's suggestions include: increasing the proportion of basic courses, developing case study courses and continuing to study for six years. Of course, these programs are full of difficulties, such as adding basic courses and applauding subjects such as constitutional punishment and civil law, and other subjects will certainly take the lead; To carry out case study courses, professional teachers and time allocation are all problems; After six years of continuous study, the decision of the Ministry of Education may be more than ten years. Of course, an established college like Huazheng is even less likely to be reformed: many students actually attend only one or two hundred main courses, so what is the case study? Old, middle-aged and young teachers have different ideas and knowledge backgrounds, and it is still a mystery whether the teachings of law can be universally recognized, let alone universally implemented. Another interesting thing is that leaders at both the municipal and school levels now like "flight inspection" and strictly investigate truancy, but they don't know that students are economic agents. If the class is really useful, how can they waste their tuition and not attend it? They all pay attention to form, not substance. Of course, Shanghai and the school can't solve the essence, so they can only grasp the form and engage in routines.

Professor Ge Yunsong finally said, "If the teaching quality of medical schools is poor, unqualified medicine will become doctors and hurt innocent patients, medical professors should probably feel guilty. The harm of seemingly unqualified law graduates is not so obvious and direct, but its harm to the rule of law and society is not "inferior" or even worse. " We pray that when it is our turn to build the rule of law in Socialism with Chinese characteristics, we will not "do great harm" to society.