Abstract：So far there is no consensus on what can be regarded as legal value and what cannot be regarded as legal value among Chinese jurists. The reason is that people have no consensus on the concept of legal value and conditions that must be met as legal value. Legal value is people’s view and attitude towards law, in which people are the subject while law is the object. The relationship between the subject and the object is that the former evaluates and demands the latter. Legal value must meet following conditions: it is ideal rather than realistic; it is abstract rather than concrete; it is of “legal” value; consensus can be reached on legal value; it does not have specification function. Among them, the first two are common conditions of value, while the last three are specific to legal value. Therefore, it can be inferred that legal value can only be justice, not anything else (including efficiency). As legal value, justice is the moral reason for people to abide by the law, the evaluation standard for the legitimacy of law, and the constraint on power. However, As legal value, efficiency cannot be proved in theory, and in practice may produce negative consequences such as reducing the law to be a tool of the strong, reinforcing the conception of valuing entities over procedures, and breeding judicial injustice. Therefore, efficiency should be returned to economy and justice to law.
2020, Vol. 37 
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