19세기 후반 지방사회에서 민소(民訴)와 청송(聽訟)실무 - 전라도 영광군 민장치부책(民狀置簿冊)의 분석 -

Abstract

This article examines the mode and realities of the summary justice by a county magistrate in local society in the late 19th century. About 6500 of complaints, reports and petitions by local residents, lower-class officials and the headmen of villages are recorded in The Book of People's Complaints(民狀置簿冊, minjangchibuchaek) of the Yeonggwang-Gun(county), Jeolla-Do (province) recorded from 1870 to 1872. The Book includes about 3100 complaints and reports which were made in the process of about 2200 litigation cases related to private disputes for lands, houses, tombs, debts, farming, irrigation, money, family affairs, and physical and verbal assault. According to a statistical analysis on these records, it is estimated that annually 800 to 1200 documents for complaint pleading by parties were submitted to the county magistrate's office in the 1870's and the number of civil litigation reached 600 to 800 every year. Comparing these estimates with those of contemporary Baxian prefecture Qing China, the annual number of litigation documents of Baxian is ten times more than that of Yeonggwang but the annual number of civil cases make little difference between both areas. Furthermore, the annual number of civil cases to population ratio in Yeonggwang area is ten times more than that of Baxian area. This finding raises a question why and how the contrast between two area was possible though it is too hasty to generalize that the Korean society of those times was more litigious. Meanwhile, the mode of litigation handling by the magistrate found in the Book of People's Complaints provides a concrete image of the summary justice for ordinary trivial disputes, which has not been spotlighted in the preceding studies on the law and practice of civil justice of the Joseon dynasty period's Korea. According to the Daily Records of Royal Secretariat of Joseon Dynasty (Seungjeongwonilgi) of the 18th century, the term “short trial disposal”(Dansongcheogyeol) was conventionally used to refer to a kind of summary justice in which trivial civil cases were disposed just by writing magistrate's opinion or disposal in the margin of each litigant's complaint through summary examination without following a procedural formality nor producing a official copy of trial record. It can be said that trial records in the Book of People's Complaint reflects the mode of local magistrate's litigation hearing of the Short-Trial or the summary justice in the late 19th century. To sketch the realities of this kind of summary justice, I try to categorize the magistrate's opinions and disposals to analyze their usage patterns and the mode of litigation proceedings. To explain the characteristics of the traditional civil justice of Korea and to deepen a comparative study with those of the traditional China and Japan, it is required to expand our perspective to the summary justice in the local magistrate's court which functioned as the most ordinary way of dispute resolution and formed the base of the civil justice system of the traditional Korea.