ABSTRACT

This chapter assesses current prospects for a constitutional supervision committee in China. It examines that for a conservative Party leadership that places a premium on flexibility to maintain its supremacy, the perceived risks of such a committee are likely to outweigh the perceived benefits. The chapter argues the conflicts in legislation at all levels undermine the ideology of a unified socialist legal system, that create barriers to economic growth and the implementation of central policies and generate unnecessary disputes that weaken stability. Beginning in late 1980, the Secretariat of the People's Republic of China (PRC) Constitutional Amendment Committee engaged in a broad discussion of constitutional supervision mechanisms, including constitutional supervision committees, centralized constitutional courts, constitutional review by the people's courts and other mechanisms. Chinese leaders have emphasized the socialist characteristics of China's legal system. In the second half of the twentieth century, communist regimes in Europe established a range of specialized constitutional supervision organs.