「寬厚」與「矜恤」──清代知縣婚姻類案件裁斷中的內在邏輯

Mercy and Jinxu (矜恤): the Inner Logic of the Judgment of Magistrates in Qing Dynasty

本文由清代知縣的典型判語模式出發，主要以清代四川南部縣為例，對知縣的案件裁斷活動進行了考察。從中發現，清代知縣「從輕」或「寬厚」裁斷案件的現象引人關注。儘管歷代官箴原本不乏官吏應「寬厚」辦案的吏道心得和告誡，但其落實的情形如何，終不免令人懷疑。本文以為，官箴對裁斷者「寬厚」斷案的宣導與清代南部縣訴訟檔案所反映的裁斷情形一致的情形提示出：「從輕」或「寬厚」裁斷既非時人的泛泛提倡，亦非僅限於一時一地的偶然現象。此一裁斷特點背後所投射出的，是一系列典型的傳統觀念，即如：為官職責、士庶之分及「權」、「責」對應。在此類觀念牽引之下，「愚民貧民不可遽責以聖賢之道」的略帶歧視的「矜恤」已然成為知縣斷案所因循的內在邏輯。「寬厚」裁斷既是裁斷者主動選擇的結果，亦因之成為其在案件裁斷中必然顯露的特性。

This Article begins its study with the court verdict of Magistrates, and took Nanbu (南部) County in Sichuan (四川) Province of Qing (清) Dynasty as example, to explore the judgment of legal cases by Magistrates. Based on the exploration of this article, a phenomenon of lighter and merciful sentence is remarkable. Although it is not hard to be found that officials frequently mentioned in Guanzhen (官箴) Dynasties ago, which magistrates should judge legal cases mercifully, the exactly situation of the legal cases judgment is still doubtable. This Article thinks, the consistency between official expression and the reality fromNanbu (南部) archives revealed that light or merciful sentence was not only propaganda, also not a coincident phenomenon happened in somewhere. The characteristic of Magistrates judgment transfer a series typical traditional ideas, such as the duty of officials, the difference between Shih (士) and Shuh (庶), and the corresponding between the responsibility and authority. Leading by this kind of conceptions, such as the ignorant and poor people should be mercifully sentenced, the inner logic of the judgment of magistrates is just judging with mercy, although the judge did it with discrimination at the same time. Hence, the magistrates initiatively chose to judge legal cases with kindness and mercy and this is a non-ignorable characteristic of the judgment of magistrates.