China's constitutional review system

Author: Wang Zhenmin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-02-01
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Content Summary
Any substantive law has a corresponding procedural law to ensure its implementation. For example, civil law has the Civil Procedure Law, criminal law has the Criminal Procedure Law, and administrative law has the Administrative Procedure Law and the Administrative Litigation Law. The Constitution should also have a corresponding procedural law to guarantee its implementation. The content of the Constitution can be divided into two major categories: substantive law and procedural law. However, unlike other laws, the term "constitutional procedural law" or "constitutional affairs procedural law" has not been explicitly proposed or used, and people often overlook its objective existence. To address this, this book explicitly proposes the concept of constitutional procedural law. The constitutional procedures discussed here primarily cover four aspects.
First, China's constitutional review procedures, also known as constitutional supervision procedures;
Second, China's constitutional interpretation procedures;
Third, China's constitutional amendment procedures.
Since China's constitutional supervision system is in its early stages, in addition to the supervision of the Constitution by the People's Congress, the courts also play a certain role in implementing the Constitution. In practice, the courts implement or fail to implement the Constitution through general civil, criminal, and administrative litigation activities, which is also a critical issue that must be addressed in the study of constitutional procedures. This gives rise to the fourth aspect of this book—the jurisdiction of courts over constitutional cases.
In addition to studying the four aspects of China's constitutional review system mentioned above, this book also examines the basic theories of constitutional review and compares major constitutional review systems worldwide. The final chapter of the book analyzes China's current constitutional review mechanism, pointing out its problems and root causes, and offers personal insights on possible institutional designs and related political reforms.
In a speech delivered by General Secretary Jiang Zemin on December 4, 2002, at the grand commemorative meeting for the 20th anniversary of the promulgation and implementation of the Constitution, it was emphasized that fully implementing the Constitution requires strengthening constitutional safeguards to ensure its enforcement. It is necessary to promptly study and improve the constitutional supervision mechanism, further clarify constitutional supervision procedures, and ensure that all violations of the Constitution are promptly corrected. The purpose of writing this book is to explore how to establish and improve China's constitutional supervision institutions and mechanisms, refine constitutional supervision procedures, and effectively supervise the actions of all state organs, particularly their abstract actions, to ensure that China's socialist rule of law is guided by the Constitution.
Although the author has long been concerned with and studied this issue, due to limited knowledge and expertise, it is believed that there are many immature aspects in the book. The author sincerely hopes that experts and authorities will kindly offer guidance and criticism.