Hikitsuke

The Hikitsuke (引付 lit. enquiry) or Hikitsuke-kata (引付方) (High Court) was one of the judicial organs of the Kamakura and Muromachi shogunates of Japan.

The Hikitsuke was established by the fifth shikken Hōjō Tokiyori in 1249^[1] to expedite an increasing number of lawsuits in the higher Hyojosho court. The Hikitsuke was responsible for establishing the facts of a case, while the Hyojosho would interpret the applications of law.^[1]

The Hikitsuke had three, and later five, tribunals; each tribunal was operated by four or five Hikitsukeshū (引付衆 adjusters), whose head was called a Tōnin (頭人), with four or five Bugyōnin (奉行人 secretaries).

The Hikitsuke's power increased gradually. At first the Hikitsuke just drafted several verdicts after hearings and submitted them to the . Submitting only one verdict per lawsuit, the Hikitsuke later became a de facto full law court. It originally processed only conflicts of the vassals of the shogunate, but later treated more general cases.^{[citation needed]}

Although it aimed at accelerating trials and making them fair, the Hikitsuke tended to make rough-and-ready decisions in the late Kamakura period. The Hikitsukeshu were mostly occupied by the Hōjō clan. In addition, the Hikitsukeshu and Hyojoshu lost effective power to the , which was held at tokuso's residence.

The Muromachi shogunate took over the system of Hikitsuke, but it lost its substantial meaning after Ashikaga Tadayoshi died, who controlled the Hikitsuke.

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