日本的法意識形成の歴史過程の一例

自由民権運動期における民事訴訟件数をめぐって

抄録

Some scholars insist that the Japanese people do not like to have recourse to litigation as a means of dispute resolution. They also point out that such lawconsciousness was formed in the Edo era and was not easily changed after that. But I think that their arguments are not correct and insist that law-consciousness of Japanese people was changed by experiences of litigation very often from the Meiji Restoration. I examined fluctuation of numbers of litigation in the period of the movement for democratic rights (Jiyu Minken Undo started in 1879) as an example of them. According to the cases of two Disrict Courts of Kochi and Sakata (Yamagata pref.), the people of both districts were seized with social and economical damages which rose in the process of litigation. And after that the people did not intend to have recourse to litigation. Such tendency was recognized in whole Japan.