The Development Of Civil Litigation System Of The Southern Song Dynasty

In the Southern Song Dynasty, the rapid development of social economy promotes the social change, so do people’s minds. The traditional concept about justice and benefit has changed. People who used to think that justice was more important than benefit gradually hold the opinion that justice and benefit are equally important. People even raise legal cases to their relatives in the pursuit of the small benefit, leading to the popularity of lawsuit, and the increase of civil litigation cases and it firstly provides a good opportunity for the development and completeness of civil litigation system of the Southern Song Dynasty In addition, the emperors of Southern Song Dynasty mostly pay great attention to the legality, working out a lot rules about civil litigation system; what’s more, scholar officials who also are deeply influenced by the Confucianism theory, focusing on mediation when they are handling civil cases All these factors make great contribution to the continuous development and improvement of civil litigation system of the Southern Song Dynasty on the basis of the inheritance of the Tang Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty and it has formed its own characteristics. Whether the first break of system on to the verdict, or the gradual formation of institutionalization of civil mediation system, and even the continuously improved evidence system, all of them have high value for research. However, the researchers have not paid much attention to it, and I think it is necessary to deepen through it. Therefore, the author mainly discusses the concrete system of the civil litigation of Southern Song Dynasty from three aspects, so as to benefit the further study.The first part describes the development of the civil litigation system of the Southern Song dynasty, discussing the development and innovation in detail. The description mainly focuses on the system on to the verdict,overstepping indictment system, mediation system, evidence system, and also the description about services limitation, administrative appeal time limitation and adjudicate time limitation with little changes. This part is relatively concrete, which paves the way for the text followed.On the basis of the first part, the second part summarizes the characteristics of the civil litigation system of the Southern Song Dynasty in three points: firstly, the right of action of civil litigation subject has expanded. in the Southern Song Dynasty. That is to say, the inferior can sue the superior. With the improvement of social status, slaves can sue their masters under certain circumstance. All of these shows that it helps maintain the rights of people. Secondly, the authorities of civil litigation put education in the first place in order to reach non-litigation. When official scholars and bureaucrats are handling civil cases, they do not use the legal judgment directly, on the opposite, they try to meditate and educate parties first, in case it can be solved. If not, the case will be solved legally.Finally, to comply with the social demand, the ruler modifies the system of limited time of lawsuit and also changes the Treasury limited system, so that the agricultural production will not be delayed because of the litigation. The change of, system of time limit and the trial period helps civil litigation cases to be quickly resolved and to prevent the backlog of cases.The third part is to analyze and evaluate the causes of the development of civil litigation system of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the reasons for the development of civil litigation system of the Southern Song Dynasty can be summarized in four aspects: emperors attach great importance to law; officials dedicate attention to people’s livelihood; the air of lawsuit among people; the rapid development of economy, science and technology. In summary, these four factors, which promote the development and completeness the civil litigation system of the Southern Song Dynasty with its own characteristics, and it has formed its own system of civil litigation. Finally, the author will evaluate the of Southern Song Dynasty from the positive aspects and negative aspects.