The Study On The Constitutional Right Of Petition

Since modern and contemporary times, the constitution law in many countries makes therule of petition right, and it considers the petition right as citizens’ basic right. It is anundeniable fact to any people that citizens should have the right of petition. However, iffurtherly query the question, we will find that there are many problems that deserved morethinking. What are we really discuss about when we talk about the petition right? What thelegitimacy that makes citizens enjoy the petition right that protected by constitution law? Andwhat’s the political philosophy basis or constitutional jurisprudence basis of this legitimacy?Only answered these questions, can we know well the “petition right in the constitution law”.In the opinion of the traditional theory, the petition right is a right that citizens used toexpress opinion or state reason to government offices and ask them to do or not do somebehaviors in order to protect citizens’ benefit or some public interest. However, this definitiondid not answer the substantive questions of the petition right. Even so, it is necessary to makea short review about the traditional view.After the brief introduction of the traditional view, this paper’s main work is to handlethe primal problems:First of all, in the development of the traditional western constitutional jurisprudence andpolitical philosophy, it has more or less discussed the problem of petition right. It is worthnoting that the formation of legitimacy and the three conceptions of human right-oriented、procedural justice and the separation of powers build up the basic theoretical background ofthe petition right. In this macro perspective, Ideologist such as Locke、Rousseau、 Benthamand Rolls had made different statement. Obviously, it is necessary to retrospect thesestatements.Secondly, is there some contradictions in the concept of petition right itself? If citizensresist the government that established through the social contract, is there the problem that“people break the contract because of giving up his rationality”? Combining with the doctrineof Rock and Rousseau, we will find that this question is not exceptional. The contemporarypolitical philosophy giant Rawls also had his own unique thinking about the problem, hepointed out that citizens can justify their petition right through the “mild resist way”.Therefore, it is beneficial to introduce Rawls’ theory in this field. Finally, in the reality level, what’s the shortage in the protection in our country’slegislation? It is not difficult to find that the fundamental question is that we have notestablished the formal conception of petition right in the constitutional law, let alone theimplementation. In addition to the existing legislation, the constitutional revisions with themeaning of petition right would not play its role----therefore, it may be meaningful to analysethe legislation form loophole.