On Legal Culture Of Songshi In Qing Dynasty

Songshi originated in Southern Song Dynasty. Due to the influence of traditionalcommodity economy and the increase of population, lawsuits increased markedly, theoccupation developed to the peak in Qing Dynasty. The main function of Songshi was tomake the Indictment, and because some of them were familiar with the local officials at thesame time, they also replaced the parties to negotiate with government, what is moreimportant was instead of planning procedure. However, the lawsuit activity of Songshinever won the approval of the people or the governmental. The authorities believed thatinstigate litigation not only against the rulers’ mind but also increased the burden ofofficials, so Songshi never got the official approval, and was considered as going to thedogs, law was truly limited to them also. For the people, they called Songshi the pilactivistsor the pettifogger because their methods of participating in the lawsuits, their political andsocial status was extremely low as well.Songshi was different from the lawyer. First of all, it was not an occupation, neverpass the exam and occupation qualification certification specialized, they were only thebottom of the men of letters or just literate persons. Secondly, Songshi could not debate inthe court like a lawyer, they just out of the system. Finally, the agent system in ancientChina was mainly made for the feudal hierarchy, could not be put on a par with modernlawyer agency system. Therefore, the social status of Songshi in Qing Dynasty wasdifferent from the lawyer in Britain and America.We first introduced the term of lawyer in1871, the development of the occupation hadexperienced a tortuous process. In1996, we passed the "Lawyers Law of the PRC", whichmarked the estimate improved of our lawyer system. But in recent years, the situation oflayers in our country is still not optimistic. Many reasons contributed to the situation,culture was one of the important factors. The ancient legal culture and legal psychology asthe parts of culture, still have some important influences on modern society. So the cultureof Songshi has inevitably affected the formation the culture about lawyer in China. Therewas still much discrimination and prejudice from the government or the publics. In manypractical cases at this time, we realize that the modern lawyer occupation don’t get rid ofthe influence of traditional culture which can’t give birth to the lawyer system. Thesituations of the lawyers not be respected or even be marginalized still exists. Prejudice and rejection limit the lawyers to exert their duties. So the study can reveal the effect of legalpsychological and legal culture to lawyer at this time.The paper not only research the working mode of Songshi and their social status withthe sociology of law, but also use the comparison method to contrast the differences of thelawyer occupation and legal culture between China and foreign countries, in order to findthe present situation and the influence to lawyers of traditional legal culture and legalpsychology.