清末修订《刑事民事诉讼法》论考——兼论法典编纂的时机、策略和技术

《刑事民事诉讼法》的修订,本是为了回应守旧大臣的批评,适应当时改革的即时之需。为此,它被定位为一部暂行章程,这导致了它简单、务实的立法风格。不过,与这种风格不协调的是,立法者又显然试图将一些时人并不熟悉的制度引入中国。《刑事民事诉讼裁判等项法律》的发现,为我们进一步了解《刑事民事诉讼法》的起草过程提供了线索。根据现有史料,不足以断定伍廷芳就是《刑事民事诉讼法》的起草人;督抚对该草案的批评,也不能简单归结为“礼教派攻击法理派”。这次立法最终以一种“不了了之”的方式终止,但是,作为法典编纂的一个失败案例,它却给后人以长久的启示。

Consideration of the Amendment of the Criminal and Civil Procedural Act at the End of the Qing Dynasty: Concurrently on the Time, Strategy and Technique of Codification

The purpose to amend the Criminal and Civil Procedural Act at the end of the Qing Dynasty was to pulverize the criticism of conservative ministers and to meet the temporary need of reform at that time.Thus,the revised Act was a doomed set of provisional rules with plain and practical legislative style.However,contrary to this style,legislators also tried to introduce some strange rules into China.Discovery of the Laws Related to Criminal and Civil Cases Adjudication affords a clue for further understanding the process of the drafting of the Criminal and Civil Procedural Act.Under historical records at hand,we cannot assert that it was Wu Ting-fang who drafted the Criminal and Civil Procedural Act,nor can we simply take the civil and military governors' criticism as "an attack of the school of feudal ethics and rites against the school of legal philosophy." This legislative activity ended with nothing settled,but as a failure of codification,it served as an everlasting lesson for later generations.