Civil Litigation System In The Qing Dynasty From Mianning County Archives

In Qing Dynasty, cases were divided into lawsuits under a magistrate's own jurisdiction and criminal cases by "penal servitude". In this category " lawsuits under a magistrate's own jurisdiction " means civil cases caused by household register, succession, marriage, land, water conservancy, debt etc. and slight cases caused by fight, flesh wound, theft etc which lead to beat or JIAHAO" punishment. On the other hand, criminal cases means important cases caused by human life, robbing, kidnap, superstition, private salt business, ruffian, gamble shelter, bribe etc which lead to penalty penal servitude (including penal servitude).Civil cases were always named as "private cases" in Qing Dynasty because they often happened in grass-roots in counties and towns, and they were private affairs among the folks. Therefore so called "Folk Trifles".As the final remedy for civil dispute, when the people felt hopeless towards civil solutions, they would wish the government to pursue justice for them. Thus, the parties involved and other participants in proceedings would all participate in hearing and settling the cases in the administration of community. All the legal relations and legal actions along with this proceeding sum up could be understood as civil procedure.This thesis is a re-arrangement of civil procedure issues in Qing Dynasty which based on files from Qing Dynasty in MianNing County, combining with Pandu and Guanzhenshu document and material, and then follows reference to the whole system of Qing Dynasty civil lawsuits. Also it gives an eye on issues like the rules for the judges to decide cases, differences between civil and criminal lawsuits, notion of ancient people towards lawsuits etc. which all related to civil lawsuit system in Qing Dynasty.Thesis is divided into three parts:First is the preface which presents the origin of this thesis, related academic achievement, purpose and significance, fundamental document and material and research approach of the thesis. Second is the core of the article. This part step by step presents civil procedure in Qing Dynasty from prosecution and acceptance, hearing, deciding and carrying out the case to appealing. On ground of this it also analyze the government attitude and civil strategy towards civil lawsuits.This part including five chapters:First chapter: local judicial organ in Qing Dynasty. This chapter mainly introduces local judicial organ and levels, civil jurisdiction, county institution and Mianning county organ in Qing Dynasty.In the local regime during Qing Dynasty, there was no specific judicial organ. Judicial trial was just one of the large quantities governmental affairs.Local regime mainly included Province, Dao, Prefectures, and County four levels. Whereas judicial organ were classified as Province, Si, Dao, Prefectures or Independent Sub prefecture, Department and County.Because of the settings of Dao and Independent Sub prefecture, Department, local judicial levels in Qing Dynasty turned out to be diverse:Basic level: Province, Si, Prefecture, County all together four.Independent Sub prefecture, Department level: Province, Si, Dao, Independent Sub prefecture, Department all together four.Independent Sub prefecture, Department County level: Province, Si, Independent Sub prefecture, Department County all together four.According to modern concept of jurisdiction combining with practical situation of Qing Dynasty, civil jurisdiction could be categorized as hierarchy jurisdiction, region jurisdiction and status jurisdiction.In local judicial organs, County trial is the foundation of all judicial decisions. District magistrate is the highest level judicial official in the county. He owns all the power to decide cases falling in his territory, namely hearing and deciding civil cases, hearing and quisi-deciding criminal cases, and he is also responsible for his decisions.The second chapter: prosecution and accepting a case. Prosecution is a legal action being taken to the feudal office for protection when one party's civil rights and benefits are invaded or controversial; the acceptance action from the feudal office if the case matches the conditions is called accepting a case. As the symbol of prosecution, the party needs to deliver documents to the feudal office. They must accord to certain style namely condescendence style. During Qing Dynasty every county has requirements on the printed out documents namely rules of style. Different places have different documents style and rules, even in the same area they varied from time to time. The officer could refuse to hear the case if it did not fulfill the requirements.Civil lawsuits can only be heard during regular time, which was August 1st to 30th March the second year. However cases were not heard everyday even during this period. In all the acceptance of civil lawsuits had a number of limitations in time during Qing Dynasty although there are some exceptions.After the County officer received the complaints, he would write endorsement whether the case was accepted according to the detailed condition. The endorsements were usually quisi written by the vice officer and then submitted to the officer in charge to sign it.The endorsements are categorized as allowed or not allowed. Acceptance is named as allowed, not allowed means rejection to hear the case.Chapter 3: Inquisition, judgment and execution. This chapter mainly introduces Inquisition, judgment and execution; retrial and minority people civil lawsuits as well.After county government decided to accept party's prosecution, relative witnesses would be summoned to appear before the magistrates. At the same time there were also some parties accepting mediation and bring together to an agreement. Usually, as regards to simple civil cases, county magistrates could reach judgments just in courtroom, then all the parties need to commit themselves to follow the trial which meant and end to the case. But for the execution of the case, it could be taken out both in court or in a limited period.For various reasons some cases need to go through more than two inquisition which was called retrial. The procedure of retrial was the same as the first trial.In Qing Dynasty there were time limitations for hearing the case and the magistrates were supervised through various means such as counseling, appealing from people and job reviewing.Chapter 4: Appeal. This chapter presents the requirements, styling papers and inquisition of appealing cases. There are five features for appealing cases in conclusion here follows: 1) appealing cases are often trialed by written documents. 2) There are few affirm the original judgment, but change the original sentence more or less. 3) No matter appealing to Fu or Province, the superior always comments the county to retrial it or requires the party straightly prosecute to the county for protection.4) the lower governments need to report the final judgment in detail and the superior also need to give detailed comments on it including agreement, partly agreement or retrial etc. 5) As the same with county prosecution, appealing cases had no limitation in frequency.Chapter 5: Thoughts and actions of parties and judges in civil lawsuits. This chapter firstly introduces the history background of civil lawsuits in Qing Dynasty, and then based on this make expounding and analysis in the thoughts and actions of parties and judges in civil lawsuits.With more and more civil lawsuits coming out, there were only limited county courts and the expenses especially the blackmail by the batmen lead to difficulties for citizens to claim their rights.As the final remedy for civil disputes, citizens had to ask the government for help. In order the cases to be accepted by the government, they must take some actions to emphasis that they were forced to do so. Moral words and legal jargons usually appear in the prosecution and exaggerating the cases. The only result was that no ends to cases.And to the busy magistrates, when faced with more and more coming cases, some positively helped out but some only negatively treated the whole affairs.The third part is the peroration. In this part, some relative questions are discussed of civil lawsuits, such as difference between civil and criminal lawsuits, the features of civil lawsuits and how to look on the attitude of Qing Dynasty and legal resources of law etc.The attitude to lawsuits could not be concluded only by pro or con lawsuits. When disputes happened, the legal environment had much influence on the people whether to take legal actions and difference of single people as well. No matter now or before, people's mental status towards law were basically the same. Therefore nothing can be concluded just in one word.Considering about the legal resources of civil law in Qing Dynasty, there are disputes existing all the time. As far as I know, the main basis are: obeying the law if there is law, obeying the customs if there is no law, obeying the reasons if there is no customs, as in turns. Actually reasons are often referred to in practice.