Srudy Of Litigation System In Classical Greece

Abstract:Nowadays there is a perception that the study of Western philosophy, political science, literature, science should be traceable to ancient Greek, while the study of Western legal systems should start from ancient Rome. Affected by the impact of this view, the ancient Greece legal system and culture as one source of Western civilization did not receive much attention in China's Foreign Legal History study; especially there was very little relevant research for the ancient Greece litigation system. But in fact, the ancient Greece legal system was starting from Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the next fused by Rome culture, it is the bridge of the communication between the East and West legal culture, it spread around the world through the Roman law, it has an impact so far and its historical effect is giant.This paper attempts to undertake a comprehensive study of ancient Greece's litigation and judicial practice in the classical period of Greece, using the perspective of sociology of law. This study is different from the traditional legal historical research of "the description of the system", it's about "the description of the judicial practice." It Not only explored the relevant legal provisions in old days, but also the practice and the process of these specific theories, and includes the social, political, economic and cultural backgrounds, the interaction between legal system and judicial practice. In particular, besides the introduction and ending part, the paper is structured as follows:Chapterâ… mainly study on the heliaea system in classical period of Athens. heliaea was created by Solon in the 6th century BC, in the beginning of the reform. Heliaea plays an important role in Athens's city-state political system, it's the supreme judicial authority and supervisor organs, and it has the heavy responsibility of the judicial judgment. In this paper, there are four important time points: 462 years BC, 410 years, 340 years, 322 years, from these time point we could find the course of Heliaea establishment. The paper also analyses its specific operational procedures, organizational structure, staffing and equipment. And the conclusion is that the Heliaea is the most important judicial organ, and also important for the city's legislative and administrative activities and plays an irreplaceable role of a democratic political system of the citizen. Finally, it's about the value of the Heliaea system in Athens court system, it's an integral part of democracy of Athens, it has both advantages and disadvantages, advantages are the flexible, democratic and representative and the disadvantages are non-professional nature and too much power, the verdict vulnerable to being swayed by public opinion.Chapter II mainly analyses the complain procedure system and it's operation instance in Athens, pointing out that there are no public prosecutor in ancient Athens in most of the cases , according to the different procedures, the Athenians divided all the cases into two categories :the private prosecution cases (dikai, can also be translated into Private cases, as violation of personal interests, only interested or the related people can bring a lawsuit), and Proctor prosecution cases (graphai, can also be translated into public prosecution cases, as violated the interests of all citizens, all the Athens can bring a lawsuit), although the two categories of cases are different from the modern classification in civil and criminal cases, but they have a certain degree of similarity in the form, the classification of Athens can be original shape of modern classification. In Athens, any person in the city can bring a lawsuit as long as certain torts are considered to be a danger to the interests of the entire city, but the people who were deprived of their civil rights are the exception. In addition, some cases of litigation could bring only by the citizens of Athens. In Athens, any citizen who has the full politic right played an important role to bring accusation to the jury court as the public prosecutor in the lawsuit. There are rich rewards for the winner of the litigation which could encourage the citizen take into the part of litigation and bring the all the crime into the court. Driven by these material interests, there appeared a special estate of people who provide the complainant (sykophantes) services for other people in the latter half of the 5th century BC, they master the legal knowledge and know how to obtain the maximum benefit by litigation, and sometimes they use the improper means to get the pay. This chapter discusses the history background and the process of the "sykophantes" establishment by analysis the etymology of "sykophantes". The paper pointed out that the estate of professional legal service is an inevitable product of democracy in Athens. The reasons of this conclusion are as follows: according to the democracy system design of Athens city-state, there must be a group of citizen who could disclose the act that violates the city law and against the interests of the city; also they could supervise the political public characters. Although the existence of sykophantes has made a considerable contribution for the Athens democracy and justice, the randomness of sykophantes gave a negative effects to the Athens sociality which will random disclose the legal act or intention defamation for personal benefits, so sometimes there was common that there were too much defamatory cases in the Athens.Chapter III is mainly about the development of defense and prosecution techniques in ancient Athens. The paper discusses that there is no lawyer of modern society who could appear in court and accused or defense for the litigants in ancient Athens, but there is an original pattern of lawyer in ancient Athens which usually be called of public speakers. In the sense of judicial judgments in ancient Athens, the real justice of the case is more important than the strict legal provisions or the code. This is the inevitable end of the special judicial mode which has no chief umpire and no professional group for both the legal and fact trial. This has some significant impact for the legal system, one of which is the high development of court prosecution and the defense. There are lots of skills by which the parties and the agents convince the jurors to make the decision for their own benefits in ancient Athens. The skills maybe displayed as praised themselves or detract the other party, also maybe reputably put the swear of the judge into the listening course, maybe put some public service liturgy or contribution to the city of their predecessors on the desk of court, maybe use the content of the litigation to leak the public order together, maybe stress on group comity and unification, maybe use some commiserate words for the sympathize of the court, maybe use the language of his humor to win their favor, and then persuade them to made the party, maybe some other pattern. The paper discusses that the party will use different skills and strategy when they have the different lawsuit, according to the different procedure and different cases, or the different role in the lawsuit, the conclusion is demonstrated by famous speaker Attica's speech. By contrast, if the defendant insist on the point of their own in the court and they are not reluctant to pray for compassion, the sentence of the case will catastrophic for them ,and "the trial of Socrates" is an example . Chapter IV is mainly about the Alternative Dispute Resolution system of the ancient Athens in the special classic period. The paper discusses that there are three special Alternative Dispute Resolution measures: challenges for the oath, the arbitration proceedings and challenges for inquisition by torture. And the paper analyses their history background, development lines, running procedure and the jurisdiction of the special measures. The end of this chapter pointed out that the Alternative Dispute Resolution system play an important role in the classical period of Athens, and the Alternative Dispute Resolution measures should not be overlooked and it can effectively alleviate the pressure of the court, and make up for the court's shortcomings.Finally, Chapter V and VI are mainly about the Sparta judicial system. It is said that the development level of the judicial system in the classic period of ancient Sparta is not as good as the ancient Athens, and there still have some parts of gods'judgments and there is no jury court system as well as the ancient Athens. There is also some special rules and principles in the ancient Sparta judicial system. In ancient Sparta, there is the classification of"public lawsuit"and"private lawsuit", and there is the integrated courtroom system and the appeared of lawyer, also have perfect arbitration system. Especially in the permanent monitoring and prosecution agencies, the prosecutor institution is a creation, it have large power and is an original conformation of the modern prosecutor system. The judicial system of ancient Sparta is the representative of the ancient Greece's legal civilization and has a great effect for the later development of the judicial system.