law. He could make the law, override existing laws, and upset administrative decisions taken in his name. Yet, although autocratic, the very existence of the complex bureaucratic machinery constituted a check on his arbitrary exercise of power. On occasion he might modify a capital sentence referred to him by the central judicial agencies for his approval, but he always did so with reference to the facts of the particular case and explained in his edict the reasons for the change he had made. Sometimes he would even accept a remonstrance by his officials that the change was not proper and accept that he had to act in conformity with the existing law. Civil law Customary law, dealt with what in the West is termed private law or civil law. In particular, it comprises rules governing matters of contract and property. In contrast with Western systems in which civil law preceded criminal law, in traditional Chinese law, the reverse was true. From the provisions of the penal code, magistrates could either derive principles of civil law either directly, if a matter was stated in the penal code (such as matters regarding debt and usury, dealings with land, the borrowing and pledging of property, and the sale of goods in markets), or indirectly reading into a criminal statute a basis for a private civil suit. Although the stereotypical view of Chinese magistrates was that they were reluctant to intervene as arbiters in any kind of civil dispute, more recent studies have argued that most of a magistrate's work involved the settlement of civil disputes. In this view, the reluctance of magistrates to take on case work had to do largely with the fact that the Chinese civil administration was small, and that the workload on magistrates was very large. Moreover, scholars in the early 21st century, such as Philip Huang (黃宗智), have argued that the traditional Chinese system of justice was fair, efficient, and frequently used in the settlement of disputes. Use of property was divided into topsoil (tianpi) and subsoil (tiangu) rights. Landlords with subsoil rights had a permanent claim to the property if they paid taxes and received official seals from the government, but did not have rights to actively use the land. Instead, those with topsoil rights paid the subsoil landlord a fixed rent (or part of the proceeds of what was produced on the land) for not only