官司讼累生态与徽州民间调处解纷偏好——依据明清徽州文书的解读

明清时期,我国一些区域尤其是江南地区是否已如学界所言形成了“健讼”民风?徽州文书特别是诉讼文书档案并未证实。透过徽州文书可以看出,州县司法由于理讼效率低下、民刑程序不分、贪腐横行及交通困阻等因素,给民众造成了巨大的讼累。在官司讼累余悸之下,百姓自然形成了通过民间调处尽快了结纠纷的选择偏好,在州县司法的告诉前、审理中与判决后三个阶段,民间调解均发挥着全方位的重要作用。这一偏好的形成,与民间调处成本、低效率高,官府对民间调解的鼓励依赖,以及民间调处更有利于修复关系等原因有关。传统官僚政治体制的公共服务能力(特别是理讼能力)的严重缺陷,只能由民间社会的有限自治功能(特别是解纷自治功能)来加以弥补。

Litigation Burden and Huizhou Civil Mediation Preference--Interpretation of Huizhou Documents in Ming and Qing Dynasties

Did some Chinese regions in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,especially in the south of the Yangtze River,have formed the increasingly litigious society as the academic circles said?Huizhou documents,especially the litigation ones,do not support the view.It can be seen from the Huizhou documents that,due to the ineffective litigation,indiscriminate civil and criminal procedures,rampant corruption and traffic jams and other factors,the state and county judicial systems caused huge litigation burden to the public.With the lingering fear of lawsuits,the common people naturally formed the preference of settling disputes as soon as possible through the civil mediation,which played an important role in all aspects during the whole trial process.The formation of this preference is related to the high efficiency of civil mediation,the government's encouragement and dependence on civil mediation,and the more conducivity of the civil mediation to the restoration of relations.The serious defects of the public service capacity(especially litigation capacity)of the traditional bureaucratic political system can only be made up by the limited autonomy function of civil society(especially the autonomy function of resolving disputes).