A Study On The Local Pettifoggers In Yanshan County Of The Republic Of China

With the reform in the late Qing Dynasty,China transplanted modern procedure to reshape order of law.In the thirty-third year of Guangxu,the Qing court issued the Pleadings rules.This subtle change not only promotes the standardization of litigation documents,also means that litigation system have become more complicated.For the public,the new procedure require more professional guidance.Two types of professional groups emerged in local society,one is the professional lawyers;the other is the local writer called pettifoggers.Regarding the problem of the thesis,what role does the local pettifoggers play in the modern litigation system?Unlike lawyer,pettifoggers is still a gray profession.Yanshan County located in the east of Jiangxi Province,does not have the distinctive characteristics of coastal or inner cities.During the period of the Republic of China,may be a typical area where tradition turned to modernity.In addition,the main material are the He Kou judicial archives,the newspaper and other material.Secondly,use the historical long lens to interpret function of local pettifoggers.The long-term,overall history,and analysis of the micro-power field are the most focused areas of pettifoggers research.The primary question is what environmental factors did Yanshan possess in the Republic of China,at least what kind of judicial environment,which led to the local society for the survival of pettifoggers.Geographically,Yanshan County is located in the northeast of Jiangxi Province,China,with Chong'an County and Guangze County in Fujian Province in the south.In terms of judicial establishment,Yanshan County began to break the traditional legal order into the modern legal model.The most obvious place is that the new judicial procedure are gradually implanted in Yanshan society of the Republic of China.This chapter discusses,through analysis the judicial environment of Yanshan during the Republic of China,and gradually responding to the factors that made the local pettifoggers have room for survival at that time.In terms of social status,the local pettifogger in the Republic of China still cannot escape the influence of the traditional label.The second chapter is about the attitude of legal order to pettifoggers.The Qing Dynasty mainly relied on local officials to be responsible for investigating pettifoggers.It is more common for local prosecutors to find litigants during the Republic of China.Many local governments have launched a campaign to investigate local pettifoggers.This chapter analyzes the reasons and effects of officials taking actions to discipline pettifoggers.The third chapter focus on the interpretation function of pettifoggers.In Hekou judicial archives,court records can be regard as legal conversations.Compared with professional lawyers,local pettifoggers may be easier to understand the expression of local people's interests,especially easy to capture the important information covered by the expression.At the same time,due to the new legal knowledge,local pettifoggers can translate the expression of interest into legal claims.In addition,pettifoggers are also good at using the resource of local law to effectively persuade the judicial officer to support legal claims.The fourth chapter is about the cat-and-mouse relationship between modern judicial officer and pettifoggers.In Hekou judicial archives,pettifoggers is not only a consultant for local people to file complaints,but also a challenger to local authority.Whether adviser or challenger,the pettifoggers will encounter legal risk.This chapter places pettifoggers in an environment that interacts with modern justice,in order to understand how pettifoggers adapts to modern judicial mechanism and the feedback of modern judicial mechanism.The conclusion is the phenomenon of pettifoggers as a paradox.In modern china,reformers hoped that the legal professional community will produce,disseminate,and implement new legal knowledge,break the old social order,and build a new nation-state.But for people,the purpose of seeking court intervention is to pursue their interests.Therefore,the choice of legal aids is based on the calculation of the interests.On the other hand,when the traditional legal order and Western legal civilization first encountered,although nation supplied professional lawyers,pettifoggers may understand the public's legal consciousness better than lawyers in local society.Instead,the new litigation procedures provide a living environment for pettifoggers.Therefore,the phenomenon of pettifoggers is a paradox.It may be an inherent characteristic of the modern Chinese legal order itself.