清代官吏抱告制度初探

A Preliminary Study on Officials’s Baogao System in Qing Dynasty

官吏抱告指官吏作为原、被告时,不能自己呈递诉状,必须由家人代为告呈。官吏抱告制度的本质是限制官吏的告呈资格,属于法定义务,具有强制性。官府设立官吏抱告的真实意图是防范官吏滥用特权扰乱司法,却无需承担刑罚,与示矜全无关。清代官吏抱告的规定在《大清律例》、“状式条例”及诉讼习惯调查报告中均有体现,足见官府对此项制度的重视。然而从司法实践来看,官吏抱告的案由主要为揭发举报、鸣冤申雪、呈请旌恤及陈言事理,与文本规定的婚姻、田土、钱债等细故相差甚远,因此清代官吏抱告制度的执行仅仅停留在形式上,可谓是有其名而无其实。

Officials’s Baogao refers to officials who as prosecution or defendant,which could not lodge plaint by themselves,but their family sued on their behalf.The essence of Officials’s Baogao System was to restrict the officials’s lawsuit qualifications,which was a legal obligation and mandatory.The real intention of Government to establish Officials’s Baogao was to prevent officials from abusing their privileges to disrupt the judiciary without bearing the penalty,which had nothing to do with maintaining officials’s dignity.Qing Dynasty’s officials’s Baogao provisions were reflected in The Great Qing Code,The Rules of Civil Litigation and The Litigation Customary Survey Report,which showed that Government attached great importance to this system.However,from the judicial practice,the main reasons of officials’s Baogao were to expose and tip-off,redress the grievance,petition for compensation,speak of reasons,which were far from the regulations of the text.Therefore,the implementation of the Qing Dynasty’s officials’s Baogao system only stayed on the surface,which could be said that it was titular.