中国传统的司法和法学

近来祖国大陆的法学界流行着两种对于中国传统的批评:其一指责中国传统司法者不遵循法律和先例,仅仅就事论事,凭天理人情作成判决;其二声称中国传统文化里几乎没有法学可言。二者都与事实不符。第一,中国自秦汉时起,法律已极繁多,在有明文可以适用或有成案可以比照的情形下,司法者都乐于遵循,不会自找麻烦另寻判决的依据。如果没有法律或成案可用,任何法制里的司法者都该先仔细分析案情(“就事论事”),然后探索法的精义(“天理人情”)而作成一个合乎公平正义的判决;中国传统司法者的做法并非例外。第二,中国历代都有许多学者不仅以纯理性的观点和方法对于当代的法律加以注释、批详,并且从历史背景和社会经验中去深究其渊源、目的和效能,以及法与其它社会规范的关系、法的正当性,法律条文不足时应该如何补救等法学上的重要问题,留下许多著作,对于这些问题提出了精辟的见解。只因他们的观点、方法和所用的语言及陈述方式与近人习见的不同,所以被忽略了。中国传统法制自成一系,与世界另几个重要法系并立,各有短长。如要加以检讨,应该先对它作一番整体的、深入的研究;如果想用另一法系的某些规定作为他山之石以改善中国法制,则更须对那些规定甚至整个法系作一番同样的研究,看清了二者的优劣,慎为取舍,不可以轻易地将中国目前的问题一概归咎于传统,更不该盲目地仿效他人。

Administration of Justice in Traditional China and Traditional Chinese Jurisprudence

The administration of justice in traditional China has been criticized for disregarding established rules and precedents and thus likened to "Khadi justice." This is a misunderstanding.Since the Qin and the Han periods when laws proliferated and decided cases,traditional Chinese judges,as civil servants elsewhere, took the easy route of applying existing rules and precedents.In the absence of such guidelines they had to find other ways to solve problems before them,particularly civil disputes.In doing so,they would carefully examine the facts and resort to norms above the law(e.g.,principles of equity and general precepts of justice),a practice shared by judges in all jurisdictions.Traditional Chinese jurisprudence is said to be underdeveloped.This only demonstrates how ignorant the critics are.Even before the Qin,legal theories flourished.Through the later periods many scholars devoted themselves to annotating the statutory laws and studying basic jurisprudential subjects,such as the origin,objectives and functions of law,the relationship between law and other social norms,and left an enormous amount of works of great profoundness.The criticisms are apparently prompted by a now prevalent dissatisfaction with the present Chinese legal system,but a sweeping denial of the Chinese legal tradition is not a good starting point for improvement,especially if the critique is based on misunderstanding and ignorance.