Pan Handian

Pan Handian (; 3 December 1920 – 26 October 2019), also known as Pan Zongxun , His grandfather, Pan Wenduo , was an official in the Qing dynasty court, and his father, Pan Chengxiu , was an attorney who served as head of the Shantou Attorney Association.

Influenced by his father, Pan studied law at Soochow University in Shanghai. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the university was forced to move four times. When his mother died in Hong Kong in 1942, Pan was unable to attend her funeral because of the war. In 1943, he published the thesis "A preliminary study of ancient Chinese legal thoughts".

Career In 1948, Pan joined the faculty of Kwang Hua University (now part of East China Normal University), beginning his 70-year career in jurisprudence. He later taught at Soochow University, Peking University, Beijing College of Political Science and Law (now China University of Political Science and Law), and Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Pan is widely recognized as a founder of comparative law in China. He studied the origin and social impact of the ancient Chinese text Canon of Laws, and considered it as influential as the earlier Code of Hammurabi of Babylon.

Pan died on 26 October 2019, aged 98.