The Controversy Of The Relationship Between Legislation And Administration In The Early Years Of The Republic Of China (from 1912 To 1913)

The relationship between legislation and administration is an important political relationship in human political life since modern times, and also an attractive question in the political system in modern China. Intercepting the early years of the Republic of China (from 1912 to 1913), based on predecessors' research achievement, adopting the methods of comparing, synthesizing, analyzing, and combining the theories of history, law and politics, this paper delves into the controversy of the relationship between legislation and administration roundly and systematically. Closely focusing on people's recognition and argument of how to assign the power of legislation and administration, and how to set their purview, the paper thinks, in an autocratic and administration-dominant eastern country, the introduction of Western-style legislative powers, and the attempt to establish the relationship between the legislation and the administration system, when it comes to the question of how to deal with the relationship between legislative power and the administrative power, are bound to lead to the conflict: the traditional administrative culture featured with administration dominance, will inevitably repulse the western law culture emphasizing on the dominance of legislative power, and the natural outcome is a lose-lose. From the perspective of competition for political power, the paper studies the recognition and the controversy towards legislative power and administrative power among Yuan Shikai political groups, Kuomintang and Progressive Party in the early years of the Republic (1912-1913), and comes to the conclusion that, surrounding the political power struggle, Yuan Shikai political groups and Kuomintang were completely opposed to each other on the question of legislative power and administrative power, and the Progressive Party took the conciliatory attitude, which was determined by some elements such as the opposition of administrative culture and law culture, the quality and the history of each political group, as well as the political struggle situation at that time. From the angle of political system design, the paper makes a research into the arguments of presidential system and the cabinet system, as well as the arguments among various political forces of whether the president have the right to dissolve the Parliament, whether the Parliament have the agreement right of the Members of Congress on the newspaper in the early years of the Republic (1912-1913). And the paper comes to the conclusion that these arguments are the embodiment of the debates of legislative power and administrative power among Yuan Shikai political groups, Kuomintang and Progressive Party, which reflected the fierce competition for political power at that time. And the situation was rational as a whole, and played a certain role in the relevant political system design in the drafting of the constitution at that time. From the standpoint of political theoretical reflection, the paper probes into the theoretical reflection of the relationship between legislation and administration four well-known thinkers, and draws the conclusion that four scholars, making full use of western theories and historical facts, combining with Chinese reality, advocated the reconcilement between legislation and administration, which served for the political opinion of the Progressive Party. In order to reflect the historical continuity and in favor of systematic research and comparative study, the paper also makes a brief account of the debate of the relationship between legislation and administration at the end of Qing Dynasty, and Sun Yat-sen's ideology of the relationship between legislation and administration, as well as the debates triggered by Sun's ideology during the period of Nanjing Nationalist government. And the paper boils down to the conclusion that the debates during three periods (the end of Qing Dynasty, the early years of the Republic and the period of Nanjing Nationalist Government), came down in one continuous line, i.e., they were similar in some aspects, besides, the innovations and differences also existed. In the end, the paper proposes a number of enlightenments.