"the ruler must rely on penal law and imposition of heavy punishments as the main instrument of his government of the people" (MacCormack 4). Although Legalist influence declined as Confucianism became the official philosophy of the state during the Han and subsequent dynasties, the great importance accorded to law as a means of controlling the masses and the primacy of xingshi or "punishment matters" over minshi or "people's matters" remained in force (Bernhardt & Huang 1). Huang said the traditional view was that "civil lawsuits were officially construed and represented as trivial annoyances to a system concerned mainly with administrative and penal matters" (Civil Justice 10). According to Basic Concepts, "the law was only secondarily interested in defending the rights--especially the economic rights-- of one individual or group against another individual or group and not at all interested in defending such rights against the state" (1-2).
Confucianism and its later version, Neo-Confucianism (979-1260), also gave impetus to the referral of civil cases to informal dispute resolution mechanisms. The Legalists believed that human nature was naturally evil, that men were guided by self-interest and that, therefore, law must concern itself with controlling their actions. Confucianism on the other hand held that men were basically good and could be educated to do the right thing by the example of moral and public leaders and their pronouncements (law). While the Legalists sought to avoid wasting the time of magistrates with peripheral civil matters, the Confucians sought to discourage civil litigation and to use it to provide moral guidance to those involved. Magistrates sought to promote the moral rule of men (renzhi) rather than the harsh rule of law (fazhi). According to Huang, ideally under Confucianism "informal justice, even more than formal justice, was governed chiefly by human compassion (renqing) and heavenly principles (tian...