On Constitutional Authority

Constitutional authority refers to the situation where constitution, the basic law of onecountry, functions as the most important and fundamental code of conduct of all institutions,organizations and individuals in the sate and society. In general, it should embody thesuperiority, supremacy and creditability of constitution. Constitutional authority has beenestablished in America, British, France, Germany and Japan, but in some countries,constitution fails to acquire real authority. Theoretical circle holds different views on theorigin of constitutional authority. The author deems it originates from both the citizens’inherent identity (moral authority and faith in authority) and the exterior regulationenforcement (political authority and legal authority). Currently, China has not yet establishedconstitutional authority in its true sense, so this thesis attempts to probe into main obstacles toestablishing Chinese constitutional authority from the source of constitutional authority andputs forward practical measures to boost the authentic establishment of constitutionalauthority in China.This thesis consists of four parts apart from introduction and conclusion.Chapter one is the connotation of constitutional authority, which first illustrates themeaning of authority and points out that authority and compliance are relative and interlinkedwhile the most important reason for the compliance should be the internal identity of thefollowers. Thus, it can conclude that authority not only rely on the practical authority from thepower but also comes from followers’ inherent identity, voluntary obedience and consciousrespect. Subsequently, based on the meaning of authority, this thesis points out thatconstitutional authority not only comes from external compelling force but also from internalpersuasion, namely, constitution is generally obeyed and supported by the public and engraveson their mind.Chapter two is the empirical survey on the constitutional authority, which mainlyintroduces and studies the current constitution in America, Britain, France, German and Japan.These countries’ current constitutional authority will be surveyed from two perspectivesmentioned in chapter one, internal persuasion and external compelling force. The empiricalsurvey is conducted from the historical background, the content and the revision ofconstitutional text, citizens’ attitude towards constitution, constitution’s control over the power of government and the expression of constitutional authority in law.Chapter three is the review and reflection on the source of constitutional authority, whichis mainly based on the understanding on constitutional authority in the first two chapters.Considering that compliance originates from internal identity and external systemenforcement, constitutional authority can be divided into internal authority and externalauthority. The internal authority can be further classified into moral authority and beliefauthority while the external authority can be further divided into political authority and legalauthority. Then, the sources of four divisions are respectively illustrated. In essence,constitutional authority is the supremacy of people’s rights. In short, the constitutionalauthority originates from human’s idea on the natural justice, people’s inherent faith inconstitution, the politically effective control over the power of the government and thesupremacy of the power of constitution in law.Chapter four is the establishment of Chinese constitutional authority from the sources ofconstitutional authority, which analyzes the reasons for why Chinese constitutional authoritycan not been established really based on the explanation on four sources mentioned in chapterthree. Namely, the unreasonable settlement on four kinds of sources leads to the lack ofconstitutional authority. Then, this chapter proposes corresponding solution thoughts, methodsand measures against problems existing in four sources of Chinese constitutional authority.