Dee Judge was a Chinese official famous for opposing corruption who twice served as the Chancellor during Tang Dynasty. As the novel described, being a government functionaries need to collect local taxes, inspect and solving crime scene, and execute the demand from central government. As the parent of the people in Chang-ping, people look for him whenever there were cases; awaiting Judge Dee to handle and solve. Though being famous among the locals, there were still problems that he could not totally eliminate and improve on. Some of these problems include the corruption among the government functionaries, the extent of the use of torture, and the distant relation between the government and the people. When it comes to the corruption, not many government officials were able to resist. If these officials were being paid less than expected, then corruption and embezzling of funds would be very difficult to prevent. Furthermore, there are certain thinking that is different between the past and the present. Certain acts in the past might be seemed as normal day-to-day issue; however, they may have already violated some of the laws of present. In the book (Judge Dee p.19) Warden Pang, upon knowing the murder case in the Six Mile Village, carried the two bodies to Koong Wan-deh's hostel and accused Mr. Koong for murder. Warden Pang hoped that he would be able to squeeze some money out of Koong. Because Warden Pang, who had some grudge against Mr. Koong for
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only presenting just little money to him, wanted to teach Koong a lesson for his "ignorance" of not paying a satisfied amount of money. Many government functionaries were being selected through a series of examinations. Those with better performances during the examination were being considered into the government posts. However, performing well during the exams did not mean that these scholars were morally upright. Their goals in live might not be to serve the people, but, with their given authorities, to squeeze out whatever they could get and send it home for family spending. Furthermore, people of that time were not as well off, and many saw the chance of becoming better off through working in government posts. With this mindset, these functionaries were more easily tempted to intentional briberies and were unable to turn back to the righteous path again. According to the source (Judge Dee p.20), many villagers, especially those involved in business, did pay certain amount of money to warden. It was like paying a "Protection Feed" to those government functionaries to ensure peace and smooth running of their business. Although we now see this as a type of corruption, people, during that time, saw it as a mutual under-table agreement to avoid unnecessary troubles. During that period, sometimes spending some extra money would ease out many troubles when carrying out official duties. These money or benefits might be seemed
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as a token of appreciation for help given, just like an FBI agent buying information from informant today. Thus, embezzled act of money spent on these "unofficial duties" were considered as a norm. With the centralized government method, most of the official issues were not known to public, and thus common people would not be able to know if corruption or embezzlement of funds had occurred among officials. Moreover, with the absolute authorities of judge in the regions described in the book, people would not be willing to risk their lives to reveal the truth. According to the book, Judge Dee, there was not much restriction on how judges use their funds. It really depends on the moral conducts of the judge to make full use of funds benefiting the public. The use of torture in suspects brings up a doubt among the readers; whether it should be applied on suspects when the case was still undetermined. Nevertheless, torturing was used as a rather effectively way to intimidate the civilians from breaking the laws. In my opinion, the judges usually made the decisions to adopt torture questioning through their own experiences and instincts. An example from the source, Judge Dee actually determined there was an occurrence of murder mostly base on his encounter strange with ghost, Mr. Bee. Through experience, Judge Dee knew that Mr. Bee died non-peacefully. Today, this would be considered as a joke. In (Judge Dee p.60), Mrs. Djou refused confess the accused crime Judge Dee
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raised. She was then being tortured through the use of screw. By this, Judge Dee wished that she would confess her crimes. From the textbook (Sourcebook p.212), people in Ming Dynasty were prohibited from traveling during the night. Any violator caught by the watchman would be beaten to death on the spot. This showed that punishment/torture was rather commonly applied with regulations to ensure the obedience of people. As the father and mother of the people, responsible judges were usually fully occupied with cases from the people. These cases ranged from small problems like quarrels among neighbors to serious criminal acts like murders. With the anticipation of the superiors and the people, judges were expected to digest all the upcoming cases smoothly. With this huge responsibility, judges would need to resolve each case effectively and in a timely manner. With the time constrain and other pressing cases, many a time judges would had to torture the suspects, forcing them into confession of a crime. This not only eases out the burdens of the judges, they would also be praised for their effectiveness. When making a comparison, trials in the past were rather different from now. The judge now depends on the evident and advance technology to determine the actual criminals. With the proving materials, criminals are still sentenced even though they may not admit their wrong doing. However, this would never happen during the
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past where the only way to close the case was for the criminals to admit their crimes and print their thumbprint on the official documents. Thus, in situation where suspects do not admit their crimes despite all evident pointing at him, torturing was considered to be the most effective way for suspect to give in. Torturing of suspect now is thought of as an act that violates human rights. However, some people might consider torturing is needed in the certain situation or circumstance during this period of time. To those government functionaries or local authorities in the past, torturing was one of the best and effective method used to accomplish solving crimes. They made use of the fact that human predominantly are unable to endure physical pain of great depth and lose his control of his own body. These harsh regulations prevented people from going against rules. During the time where small central government controlling a great land of China with various cultures and races, obedient citizens would be of much great help in the stability of the dynasty. Thus, torturing was generally found in the past time. In the story, the villagers were described as those unwilling to be involved with the local government. Matters that were important and needed to be reported were neglected by civilians. In the story, this had posted some challenges to Judge Dee in searching for the truth of the cases. From Mr. Hua's case, the maid actually neglected some of the detailed descriptions of the events at the night of the murder. Judge Dee
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bellowed at that maid for not telling the detail of the incident although she was told to describe even the smallest events. This missing event actually was the key to the mysterious murder. It seemed that people were actually afraid of the government officials rather than to be "unfriendly". In my opinion, it was due to the difference in the status between government functionaries and the common people. Apparently, those magistrates considered themselves superior to the villagers. Furthermore, with the fact that some officials like Warden Pang who collects money from people, it further increase the distance with commons. Most of time, people considered these magistrates only bringing troubles to them. All together, these problems will not be totally eradicated in society. Some of these issues are still common today. They are at most being controlled under certain level. No matter how well the government system or magistrates become, these problems will still exist.
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