Analysis Of The Political Nature Of Party Legislation In Western Countries

With the development of political parties,it forms an important part of democracy.To some extent,party politics can be seen as an equivalent to modern democratic politics.Changes in legal status and democratic functions of political parties result in a series of legislative actions,thereby establishing a legal system of political parties.Western countries,especially countries of Europe,have accumulated a lot of experience in the establishment of legal system of political parties,which sets up an example for us to learn from.Domestic researches on legal system of political parties have laid great emphasis on the introduction of its framework in western legal systems.Consequently,domestic research has not fully explored the essence of legal regulations on political parties.Due to the principal distinction between common law and civil law countries,the legal system of political parties is divided into two different models.In common law countries,such as UK,US and Australia,the legal system of political parties is composed of legal regulations in election law and standing orders of parliament.Lack of constitutional status of political parties represents the most obvious problem in this model.In explaining the above phenomenon,the author found that there are four reasons causing this problem.Compared to this kind of model,the legal system of political parties in civil law countries consists of provisions codified in national constitution election laws and standing orders.Besides,some of the European countries even enacted Party Law and Party Finance Law that specially regulate party organisation and party activity.Thus,the model in civil law countries constitutes the most comprehension legal system of political parties in the world.In terms of models,the latter is obviously better than the former.However,these two models bear some disadvantages in common.First of all,the legal definition ignores the polities born with political parties.Although most of party organisation and party activity are regulated by law,there are still some party of the above aspects remaining unregulated.Secondly,due to the dynamic feature of political parties,it imposes a threat to the static legal system.Up till now,the legal status of political parties has changed from private association to public activity.As long as the external settings change,political parties wills which induce the legislative chamber to enact laws made by political parties.Based on those disadvantages,the author argues that law theories alone,cannot fully explore the essence of political parties and the legal system established for it,for the political party is essentially a political organisation.When it comes to political parties,researchers should pay attention to its legal feature as well as political nature.This article begins by examining the party registration requirements in the two models.In order to enter into the electoral race,it is necessary for every political party to meet the registration requirements.Generally speaking,these requirements include a party statute,the number of party members and candidates,deposit and a financial department.It is these provisions that the author term gatekeeper provisions.However,western scholars believe that,gatekeeper provisions are enacted to prevent new parties from entering into the electoral race and the parliament.It is also the product of collusion between the party and the state.In order to prove this hypothesis,the author begins by analysing the content of Party Law in Europe and finds out that party organisation external oversight and party finance forms the top three important contents.Party registration requirements are included in the category of party organisation.This gives scholars reason to doubt the underlying purpose of party legislation.But from the perspective of changes in law,the results are that the increase in party finance makes up the most obvious change.The result is closely related with the attempt that the EU hopes to enhance party transparency and combat corruption.All in All,current date analysis is not able to demonstrate the relationship between party in government and party legislation,especially gatekeeper provisions.In the last part,this article brings forward several suggestions to reply current problems in legal system of political parties.Among all the problems,the overlook of political nature of parties produces the following imperfection.Following lawmakers and scholars should give priority to political feature.The next question comes to the judiciary.The author insists that the judiciary need to regain neutrality in order to provide fair treatment.Last but not least,political parties should make every effort to enhance its understanding of rule of law.Since political parties hold the key to democracy,they are meant to obey laws.Only in this way can political parties acquire legitimacy.