明清訟師的興起及其官司致勝術

The Rise of Litigation Masters and their ＂Arts of Winning the Case＂ Manuals in Late Imperial China

邱澎生(Peng-Sheng Chiu)

《歷史人類學學刊》 7卷2期 (2009/10) Pp. 31-71

摘要

傳統中國未曾出現律師固是事實，但這並不表示訟師的出現與發展不具備重要的歷史意義；現代律師在清末民初取代傳統訟師的史實，並非只是反映中國法律由「不發達」走向「發達」的一個法律現代化歷程；考掘明清訟師興起的歷程，有助於我們理解明清歷史變遷的一些重要線索。不需要政府的合法承認，不畏懼中央與地方官員的取締，甚至也不必仰賴社團組織或教育機構的公開傳授與集體討論，訟師與訟師秘本所承載的訴訟技巧與法律知識依然不斷傳播與累積，乃至演化出某種特殊的「官司致勝術」。本文兼採「外在制度環境」與「內部價值觀」兩個分析策略，試圖將明清訟師的官司致勝術放回中國當時的歷史情境中。「外在制度環境」指的是將訟師活動放在明清市場經濟發展以及審轉、審限司法體系調整等外在環境變動的制度背景裡；「內部價值觀」則是分析訟師秘本究竟含有何種獨特的價值觀念，並探究這些價值觀與當時社會上其他評價法律知識的方式有何異同。本文主張：明清訟師已成為足以提供當時包含商人在內各種訴訟服務的群體，儘管他們並未鑄造及提倡諸如「法治」、「人權」等詞語，但有些訟師秘本仍然傳遞了意欲保護委託民眾身家財產安全的理念，甚至不惜為此與官員鬥智鬥力。要深入理解訟師與其傳習訟師秘本的意涵，既要明瞭16至19世紀間中國市場演化與司法改革等「外在制度環境」的變動，也要知曉類似「百戰百勝派」、「知法者懼法派」等訟師對法律知識的評價，究竟反映了當時中國何種「內部價值觀」的變遷。

關鍵字

訟師 ； 律師 ； 訟師秘本 ； 法律 ； 明清中國

並列摘要

It is true that traditional China had no lawyers or legal profession. But this does not mean that the development of litigation masters or pettifoggers (＂songsi＂) was not of great historical significance. The displacement of the litigation masters by modern lawyers in the late Qing and Republican periods was not simply a process of modernization of Chinese law from underdeveloped and backwards to developed and modern. Analysis of the history of the litigation masters is crucial to a full understanding of important trends in historical change in Ming and Qing. Requiring no legal recognition by the state, unafraid of suppression by central or local officials, and relying on no guild or inn to recruit and license students or to encourage cross-fertilization of professional ideas, the litigation masters nonetheless continuously transmitted and developed the arts of the lawsuit and legal knowledge. Their secret handbooks, or ＂Arts of Winning the Case＂ (＂zhishengshu＂), served as the medium for transmitting their professional knowledge. This paper uses two analytic approaches to situate the ＂Arts of Winning the Case＂ in their historical context. The first approach considers the external and institutional environment, meaning the development of the market economy and the judicial ratification and review system of Ming and Qing China. The second seeks to uncover the internal system of values expressed in the secret manuals, and to compare them to other forms of legal knowledge at the time. The article concludes that by the Qing litigation masters had already formed into a professional group that was able to provide all manner of legal services for its clients, including merchants. Though they did not produce a vocabulary of laws and rights, some manuals did develop a notion of the desirability of protecting the safety of persons and property, even to the extent of opposing government clerks and officials. To fully appreciate the litigation masters and the manuals by which their knowledge was transmitted, we need to understand both the external and institutional environment and the internal values systems in China from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

並列關鍵字

litigation masters ； legal manuals ； law ； late imperial China