조선시대 發緘推考의 방식 및 변화

Abstract

The original meaning of chugo was to ‘investigate and interrogate’, and during the early Joseon period chugo and munbi were used distinctively. King Taejo formulated a rule against officials who committed crime which was to first practice preliminary chugo, and then for those offenders who deserved a punishment with a heavy stick or worse, a full scale chugo was to be practiced, while for those who deserved a punishment with a light stick or something lesser, written inquiries were to be sent. King Sejong decided to practice gonghammunbi for officials from 3rd to 6th rank who committed crime. Gonghammunbi referred to a process of exchanging a written inquiry, gongham, and an answer, hamdap, with a suspect and proceeding with the investigation and judgement. Since the promulgation of the Gyeongkukdaejeon, there were mainly three methods in the practice of chugo: first one was sugeumchugo which was to arrest and investigate, the second was jillaechugo which was to summon to appear in court and investigate without custody, and the third was balhamchugo which was to send a written inquiry without custody. Since the reign of King Jungjong, gonghammunbi was used like gonghamchugo and balhamchugo as chugo and munbi came to be understood as a same concept. In addition, a new system of haenggongchugo was adopted early in his reign, which allowed suspicious officials to receive chugo while normally performing public affairs. At the end of Jungjong’s reign, chugo began to refer to a form of punishment against officials. Since the reign of King Myeongjong, there were many cases where chugo was used as a form of punishment lighter than replacement or dismissal from office. In this regard, it seems that it was during the reign of King Jungjong in 16th century when chugo became to be used as a form of punishment against officials. In late Joseon, the method of balhamchugo was also divided into sangsichugo, jongjungchugo, hamsachugo, and hamsajongjungchugo. Sangsichugo referred to a general form of chugo not including jongjungchugo, hamsachugo, and hamsajongjungchugo. It was mostly recorded as ‘chugo’ in the historical records and the law at the time. Jongjungchugo first appeared in the 27th year of King Seonjo(1594) according to the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty which meant to ‘investigate following the heavy side’. ‘Following the heavy side’ indicated that even if a person committed one crime, if there were more than two penal codes for the crime, the heavier one was applied. For the public crime, sangsichugo was generally practiced as punishment with a light stick and jongjungchugo as punishment with a heavy stick, but for the private crime, heavier punishment was likely to be imposed such as removal from office or demotion. However, sangsichugo and jongjungchugo were less effective as actual penalties since in most cases, they were replaced with paying fines. From early Sukjong‘s reign, the process of chugo did not even proceed as Office of Royal Secretariat would write the chugojeonji with the king’s approval, store it in their office waiting for further order from the king, and later destroy it with the king’s decree of amnesty. This system became a decisive reason for balhamchugo, along with haenggongchugo, to result in the loss of punitive function. Both hamsachugo and hamsajongjungchugo started to appear from the reign of King Youngjo. They referred to a system where the Office of Royal Secretariat immediately sends the chugojeonji to the authority concerned upon approval from the king, which then exchanges the written inquiry and answer with the suspect, and then applies the law accordingly. Unlike sangsichugo and jongjungchugo, hamsachugo and hamsajongjungchugo intended to speed up the process of chugo by delivering the chugojeonji right off without needing to get reapproval from the king. Among them, hamsajongjungchugo, as a combination of hamsachugo and jongjungchugo, referred to practicing hamsachugo following the heavy side. The result of hamsachugo was similar to that of sangsichugo, while the result of hamsajongjungchugo was similar to that of jongjungchugo along with the practice of redemption by fines. In this sense, hamsachugo and hamsajongjungchugo should not be understood as a newly created penalty system distinct from the previous ones but a system that restored the original purpose of sangsichugo and sangsijongjungchugo that have been carried out in a perfunctory manner.