A Study On The System Of Documentary Documents In Civil Procedure In The Song Dynasty

It is well known that the civil law of the Song Dynasty had the prestigious reputationin the entire Chinese legal history. This dissertation is dedicated to explain how thebasic kinds of documentary evidence worked in the legal form of the Song Dynasty.The main purpose of the senior thesis is to explore the values and implications behindthe institution of the civil documentary evidence of the Song Dynasty.To be more specific, in the initial chapter, the elements include: the trace of thedocumentary evidence in previous dynasties, the definition of the documentaryevidence in a particular historical environment and the outline of the anonymousinstitutions of the documentary evidence of the Song Dynasty. The subsequent threechapters discuss the basic kinds of the documentary evidence of the Song dynasty indepth, such as the contract, the land certificate, the note, the separation certificate andthe verdict. And those chapters explain that the formations, the pertinent cases and theroles in the judicial process. In chapter Five, according to the former arguments, wecan recognize the standards of the documentary evidence of the Song Dynasty thatexplains how the “evidence material” can be identified to be the “evidence”. Startingfrom the basic theory of evidence law, the last chapter discusses the implications ofthe judicial nature of song dynasty thorough judging the civil documentary evidenceof the song dynasty.According to the prior discussion, the conclusion is: in the process of civil procedureof the Song Dynasty, the judge shed more light on the investigation and judgment forthe documentary evidence than ever before. They mainly used the legal regulation toensure the requisite in form and the veracity of the content. This judicial actiondemonstrated the Song Dynasty civil justice was more tend to reflect a principle of"substantial evidence". Based on this, the Song Dynasty was a kind of theInquisitorial litigation model led by the civil judicial official and the judge mainlyesteemed the evidence as the legal basis, rather than the so-called "Khadi justice".In brief, the institutions of the civil documentary evidence of the song dynasty are thetoken of the skill and wisdom in the civil legislation and judicature. Meanwhile, this institution played a positive role in solving the civil disputes and promoting a briskfolk economy.