Legal and Historical Research on the Relationship between Judgment and Evidence in Japanese Medieval Law-Reexamination of the Court Code

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26380021
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Fundamental law
• Research Institution: Doshisha University
• Principal Investigator: NISHIMURA Yasuhiro 同志社大学, 法学部, 教授 (90274414)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 基礎法学 / 日本法制史 / 中世法 / 訴陳状 / 応酬 / 証拠法 / 裁判 / 召文違背

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, it is main issue to clarify the legal and historical background as to the relationship between the reason and ground of the judgment, and the content of the claims by the parties of the lawsuits and the evidence based on the allegations.
Specifically, we clarified the actual circumstances of the lawsuits described in each judgment document through organizing the materials of the Kamakura Shogunate in connection with the cases of "refusal to summons" defined in Article 35 of the Goseibai-shikimoku. The litigation party who insists on the other party's attitude of refusal to summons and his illegal act, simply did not have the ultimate goal of simply obtaining the judgment to which Article 35 was applied. Rather, the application of Article 35 was the only way intended to fulfill their original requirements. The courts also took an attitude to properly judge whether the litigants' claim was true or false. In this research, we came to present such a hypothesis.

Free Research Field

日本法制史・日本法文化論

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究は日本中世の裁判における訴訟当事者の主張と判決の関係を規律する証拠法の一端を明らかにしている。とりわけ鎌倉幕府の裁許状に関する実証的な検討を通じて、御成敗式目35条にいう召文違背をめぐる訴訟当事者の主張および裁判所の判断に関して、証拠法の観点からの分析を試みている。本研究で試みたこのような分析方法は、こんご鎌倉幕府の裁許状に関する検討を進めて行く中で活かされるべきものであり、この意味で本研究は法制史研究の発展に寄与しており、広く学術的および社会的意義を有しているといえる。