Judicial Officials’ Concept of Legal Order in Tang Dynasty: Focusing on the Implementation of Law Code and the Judicial Field

• Main Authors: Hsiao-I Yang, 楊曉宜
• Other Authors: 甘懷真
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/12233750211464838723

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 歷史學研究所 === 105 === This paper discusses the legal order of Tang judicial officials by applying the concepts of practicing code and the judicial field. Legal order means the ideal order operated under the imperial code, its exertion in different judicial fields, and the flexibility of judicial officials’ personal interpretation, understanding, and utilization of the law. This paper is divided into four main parts. First, in the preface, I will provide a general view of the main objectives of this research project. The following chapter on legal code will offer a detailed discussion about how the Tang Code was compiled and enacted. I argue that early Tang lawmakers emphatically highlighted “dexterity” and “leniency.” The emphasis on these two concepts was already obvious in one of the dynasty’s earliest legal texts—The Wude Law. Tang emperors must also make changes either adding or deleting certain statutes within the dynastic code to accommodating with contemporary political situations. This is to say that the Tang rulers and lawmakers had put enormous emphases on the practicality of the code. The second part, which starts from “The Judicial Officials’ Operation of the Tang Code,” will shift to officials’ understanding, learning and practice of the law code. I aim to provide answers to how the officials defined their identities by applying and exerting legal knowledge. It is widely known that the judicial officials served at either the central court or local yamen. The so-called central legal officials included the censors (yushi御史) under the imperial censorate (yushitai御史臺), those from the Board of Punishment（xingbu 刑部）who handled with the code, and the Grand Court officials who meticulously reviewed and revised the law reports. Local offices were administered by military commissioners, judicial administrators, and prefectural and county magistrates. These officials were obliged to be familiar with the imperial code, and applying such knowledge to legal judgments by considering human sympathies (renqing) and appropriate reasons (li). However, the intricate situations of each legal case demanded a middle ground between the code and its actual practice. Hence, many officials who observed the inadequacy of the code insisted on the enactment of statutes. In this context, the actual practice of the imperial code appeared to be much more flexible than the code on paper. In the third part, “The experience and image of the central legal officials,” I examine the central officials’ attitude toward homicidal cases and local cases. To a certain extent, the central officials represented the authority of the imperial law. The state expected impartiality, kind-heartedness, and knowledge of the code when recruiting legal censors and judges. These characteristic did not only exist on paper. In reality, they had exerted significant influence on the image of the officials, and helping them to find a balance point between the interests of the emperor, the aristocrats, and the bureaucracy. Furthermore, many Tang officials had stressed over the ability of redressing injustices as a means to maintaining positive images. The Tang code, as I argue was built upon two fundamental principles—judge by law and impartial evidence. The latter had been closely associated with redressing injustices, which indicated that partial evidence could result in unjust punishments. Fourth, it examines the judicial field of the local officials and their interaction with the commoners. My main sources include the Collection of judging lawsuits (Zhe Yu Gui Jian折獄龜鑑), various epitaphs, Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, The Old Book of the Tang, The New Book of the Tang, Prime Tortoise of the Record Bureau, The New Anecdotes of Tang Dynasty and etc. I will focus on how local officials interacted with different parties involved within a legal suit and their subordinates. In such process, the local officials had to be adept of using knowledge and language that articulated the imperial law and Confucian morals to make judgments. This ability differentiated the local officials from the central officials as the former could establish great reputation among the commoners. This sort of reputation must also coincide with popular expectation of the commoners. Thence, at the local, the actual practice of the law was in a recursive relationship with the folk society. In short, the Tang judicial officials had transformed the ideal order envisioned by the imperial code to a much more practical means in actual judgments. This practice had significantly influenced the image-making of officials, as well as the legal order of the state. The officials were not only expected to be familiar with the code, but also to have the ability of dealing with various situations indifferent judicial fields, which in this case, included the code, legal knowledge, and the specific context of a lawsuit. It was such expectation that helped promote the popular image of a good, kind-hearted, and impartial official.