The General Right To Equality And The Right To Gender Equality In Chinese Constitution

In countries where judicial review exists, cases and legalinterpretations regarding right to equality have already accumulated to alarge extent. However, in China there is hardly any serious study in thisfield, since the Constitution is not applicable here. The aim of this paper isto fill this blank.The author tries to participate in the discussion of existing theoreticalhot issues in this field and to interpret relevant norms in ChineseConstitution, by comparing them with the norms in the German Basic Law.The reasons why the author chooses German Basic Law as a reference are,that this paper can provide the Chinese academia with some first-handGerman literature in this field, and that the wording of the right to equalityclause in the German Basic Law is similar to that in Chinese Constitution,which means the respective meaning of the two might have a lot incommon.This paper is structured as follows:In the first chapter the author introduces the importance of theresearch topic, the method of research, and existing academic results in thisfield.In the second chapter the author firstly illustrates the changing course of the norms of right to equality from Weimar Constitution to the GermanBasic Law, then introduces the German theory of the general right toequality clause, the gender equality clause, and anti-discrimination clause.In the third chapter the author firstly illustrates the changing course ofthe norms of right to equality in the four historic constitutional documentsand summarizes their commonness and differences. Then the authorestablishes the framework of norms of right to equality in ChineseConstitution by excluding irrelevant norms. Thereafter, the author criticizesthe existing mainstream view in regard to the content of the general right toequality clause and interprets the gender equality clause thoroughly. At last,the author points out that Chinese scholars are not paying enough attentionto the concrete standard of right to equality review.In the fourth chapter the author restates conclusions of this paper: thenorms of right to equality in Chinese Constitution do not include Article4.1and Article5.5; the specific right to equality only includes the right togender equality; the dispute regarding whether the right to equality is aconstitutional principle is meaningless; the equality in the Constitutionmeans formal equality and substantial equality on an equal basis; the rightto equality requires legislative equality; the gender equality does not forbidgender being a differentiating factor; the scope where the right to genderequality is applicable is not limited to liberty rights in the Constitution; thestate is obligated to prefer women in both public sector and private sectoraccording to Article48.2.