Concept Of Natural Law And China's Constitutionalism

Although constitutionalism was created by the capitalist class, it boasts universal value. It is the emancipation and overall development of human beings that socailism aims to. In this regard, constitutionalism and socialism are concordant. Therefore, constructing constitutionalism is not only something we can do, but also something we should do. China's constitutionalism construction won't proceed smoothly without a hitch, due to its exogenous cause as well as long history of feudalism and despotism. The constitutionalism that we are going to build belongs to socailistic system, which is different in essence from the one of capital society. However, it will be helpful to us if we find out the factors affected on the construction of constitutionalism in west. In this essay, the writer take the concept of natural law as the entry point to identify the affect of natural law on constitutionalism, and probe into the helpful role of natural law can play in our contitutionalism construction in China.In the first part of this paper, the writer analyzes the history and unique characters of natural law and constitutionalism briefly. In the second part, the writer discusses the specific contributions of natural law to constitutionalism. These contributions include both material aspect and formal aspect. The former contains the principles of popular sovereignty, of separation of power, of protection of rights and of rule of law and rationalism. The latter contains written constitution and its supreme legal authority. In the third part, the writer deals with the role natural law can play in China's constitutionalism building which faced both opportunities and challenges. As a matter of fact, there isn't such a traditional concept of natural law that we can rely on in China's constitutionalism building. Marxist jurisprudence's spread changed this to a certain extent. Marxist jurisprudence build on the foundation of dialectical materialism, while it is bound up with natural law. The role natural law played in western constitutionalism can be replaced by Marxist jurisprudence in China's constitutionalism building. Marxist jurisprudence should solve two difficulties of China's constitutionalism building, namely fostering principle of rule of law and complete system for the review of constitutionality.To sum up, our constitutional construction, in which difficulties will be inevitable, must insist for a long time to be successful. Only by implementing and adhering to the basic principles of Marxist jurisprudence can we overcome these difficulties. Construction of socialist constitutionalism is the very historical mission of Marxism jurisprudence in China's current and future very long period of time.