The Study On Constitutionalism Of Kung Chuan Hsiao

The construction of constitutionalism was a major theme of the politics in the history of the Republic of China after the old dynasty collapsed and a new system hadn't been established. Concepts of democracy and republic widely spread with various researches and debates of the constitutional government. It had great significance to study theories about constitutionalism. Kung Chuan Hsiao, a philosophy doctor who graduated from Cornell University of the United States, had never been involved in politics for a lifetime, which made his theory and interpretation about the construction of constitutionalism relatively objective under the very special social and political reality of the Republic of China. Through the historical contextualism method mainly advanced by Quentin Skinner, the study of the constitutionalism in the revolutionary time such as the constitutionalism theory of Kung Chuan Hsiao is significant to the construction of constitutionalism in the People's Republic of China. Except a brief introduction about his life and academic achievements, three aspects are included to conclude his theory of constitutionalism. He attached particularly importance to the rule of law in the three meanings contained by constitutionalism because constitutional government can only be built in a nation ruled by law. By observing and concluding the successful experience of constitutionalism in the Great Britain and the United States as well as combined with the social reality, Kung Chuan Hsiao claimed that people should take the main responsibility to promote the construction of the constitutional government in the process of constitutionalism. After the Chinese people's Political Consultative Conference published the draft of the new constitution, divergence of different parties arose, Kung Chuan Hsiao proposed the compromise theory from the nonpartisan political view, hoping that all parties could put tolerance in the first place and exclude all constitutional objections so that all forces could committee to the implementation of the new constitution and make improvements in this process to achieve the ideal constitutional state. Because of his independence of politics and partisanship, his theories about constitutionalism are out of his love towards his country and worry of the harsh social realities which making them objective and neutral. At the same time, compromise theory implies the conservative elements of his constitutionalism theory as well as the influence of the special society to his theory.