超越“依法裁判”的清代司法

Judiciary in the Qing Dynasty Transcending‘Judgment According to Law’

我国学界长久以来,不加区分地将清代司法裁判归属于近代西方的"依法裁判"类型。这种研究进路主要是从裁判所依据的"法源"入手,纠结于司法裁判到底或主要依据什么而展开,致使有关清代司法裁判的论说有意无意地沦为一种被动适用"大前提"的样态,无法切中要害。实际上,清代司法无论是"命盗重案",还是"州县自理案件",都从事实层面表现为一种对"依法裁判"模式的超越,堪称是一种"权宜裁判"类型。这种裁判类型不仅关注个案本身的特殊性和裁判结果的妥当性,而且在客观上能够实现对于裁判决策的稳定性限制,因而,在"全球法律史"的视域下,构成了司法裁判的一种独特模式。由于"权宜裁判"在诸多方面仍能满足当下中国人对于司法裁判的理解和需要,所以至今在中国司法实践中仍具生命力。

For a long time,China’s academic circles have been unconsciously applying the doctrine of‘judgment according to law’,a conception originated in the modern West,as the criteria categorizing judicial judgments in the study of such activities in the Qing Dynasty.This research approach,which mainly initiates the discourse from the‘source of law’serving as the base of judgements and is fixated on what the judicial judgment was based on,confines the discussion of judicial judgments in the Qing Dynasty with a passive application of the‘general premise’and cannot reflect the reality.As a matter of fact,judicature on both‘serious cases involving human lives and bandits’and the‘cases judged by county-level magistrates’showed certain transcendence to the mode of‘judgment according to law’and could be called‘expediency adjudication’.The‘expediency judgment’in Qing Dynasty not only emphasized the particularity of individual cases and the appropriateness of ensuing judgment,but also served as a stable restriction on the judgment-making process objectively.Therefore,under the background of‘global legal history’,‘expediency judgment’constituted another unique type of judicial judgment.Because the‘expedient judgment’can still meet Chinese people’s understanding and expectation for judicial judgment in some aspects,this mode is still clinging and reflected in modern China’s legal practice.