唐代「天下之法」的觀念和限制君權的法律範式

The Conception of“Supremacy of Law”in the Tang Dynasty and the Legal Paradigm of Restricting Monarchical Power

權力是一種控制和調配社會資源、維護和鞏固社會秩序的力量，對權力的監督和制約，是人類政治史上的永恆話題，不受監督和制約的權力必然導致腐敗。中國古代是一個君主專制的社會，在長達幾千年的歷史長河中，皇權一直凌駕於法權之上。唐朝建國之後，以唐太宗為首的統治集團提出了「天下之法」的思想，構建了較為完備的法律體系，創制了許多限制君權的措施，並以法律的形式確立了法權高於皇權的原則，在一定程度上限制了君主的權力，避免了濫用權力的現象，使李唐政權成為中國古代的盛世。但唐代社會畢竟是一個君主專制的社會，若沒有平等的觀念和對民眾權利的保障，唐代以法律限制君權的舉措所起到的作用也非常有限。

The supervision and restriction of power that controls and allocates social resources and maintains and consolidates social order is an eternal topic in the history of human politics. Power without supervision and restriction will inevitably lead to corruption. Ancient China was an autocratic monarchy society. Throughout the long history of thousands of years, the imperial power has stood above the legal power. After the founding of the Tang Dynasty, the ruling clique headed by Emperor Taizong 太宗 put forward the idea of “Supremacy of Law” (tianxia zhi fa 天下之法), constructed a relatively comprehensive legal system, established many measures to restrict the imperial power, and established the principle of the law standing above the ruler through legal forms. To some extent, this restricted the power of the monarch and avoided the phenomenon of abuse of power, making the Li regime of the Tang 李唐 a prosperous era in ancient China. However, Tang society remained after all that of an autocratic monarchy. Without the conception of equality and the protection of people’s rights, the measures adopted by Tang Dynasty to restrict the power of the monarch by law had a very limited effect.