Research On The Constitutional Review Function Of The Constitution And Law Committee Of The National People's Congress

Constitutional review system is conducive to ensuring the implementation of the constitution and maintaining its authority.In March 2018,the constitutional amendment changed the name of the "law commission" to the "constitution and law commission." The standing committee of the National People's Congress(NPC)made a decision on June 22,2018,making it clear that the constitution and law commission will assume multiple responsibilities,including "promoting the review of constitutionality ".The report of the 19 th CPC national congress formally put forward the proposal of "advancing the work of constitutional review".Therefore,the constitutional supervision system,which has been called for many years in the theoretical circle,will soon come into play in practice and finally get rid of the dilemma of simply deducing how the constitutional review system should operate on the sand table.The constitution and law commission is responsible for the constitutional review,which is a rational choice after careful consideration.Although it is not necessarily the most ideal scheme in the system design,it appears to be the one that most suits NPC system and exerts the least influence to the existing system.Now it has been made clear which institution is specifically responsible for the constitutional review.With the constitution and law commission as the starting point,the constitutional review must focus on its institutional attributes and functional characteristics for further theoretical discussion and institutional design.At present,only the overall framework of constitutional review has been determined at the macro level with no specific system having been set at the micro level.Laws and regulations concerning the review of constitutionality or the specific operation of the constitutional and law commission have also not been enacted.The system design in this paper is mostly based on the previous theoretical research and the improvement of the existing similar system.Due to the early establishment of China's constitutional review system,there is a lack of sufficient practical experience,and constitutional review originated in western countries.Therefore,this paper introduces and draws lessons from the relevant theories and specific systems of constitutional review in western countries in several links,especially the judicial review system in the United States,the constitutional court review system in Germany and the constitutional committee review system in France.The functions of the constitution and law commission in constitutional review are discussed below.First,we must clarify the role of the constitution and law committee as well as the NPC and its standing committee in constitutional,which is a prerequisite for the effective role of the constitutional and law commission in constitutional review.It should always be borne in mind that the constitution and law commission is only an auxiliary body to assist the NPC and its standing committee in their constitutional review,which the NPC and its standing committee have the right to decide on.Second,the possible operating mechanism of the constitution and law commission should be explored from the existing laws and regulations,which ought to be carefully including the Constitution,the Legislative Law,the Supervision Law,the Organizational Law of the NPC Standing Committee.By penetrating deeply into various systems related to the research subject in these articles,such as the constitutional supervision system,the legislative system,the archival examination system,etc.,this paper lays a foundation for discussing the functions of the constitution and law commission in the constitutional review.Finally,consideration needs to be given to the relevant work of the constitutional and law commission and other concerned bodies to the constitutional review.Constitutional review is an important constitutional system,which may be difficult to achieve by relying only on the constitution and law commission.It needs the participation and assistance of other relevant institutions.On the basis of reviewing the functions of the original law committee,we should explore the links between the constitution and law committee and the working committee of the NPC standing committee,other special committees,the central committee for the comprehensive rule of law,the NPC and its standing committee in constitutional review.According to the academic division of constitutional review,the operation of the constitution and law commission in constitutional review can be divided into two parts.One is constitutional review of legal documents.The second is constitutional review of state organs.There are many similarities between the review mechanism of the two parts,such as determining the connotation and extension of legal documents and acts of state organs,planning and screening mechanisms,and clarifying the procedures of substantive review.Of course,due to the differences in terms of the review,the two review mechanisms should be dealt with combining specific circumstances.For example,the intervention of the central committee for the rule of law also varies.This paper is not limited to the constitution and legal commission.In order to ensure the integrity and continuity of the review work,this paper,based on the functional study of the constitution and law commission,added the functional analysis of other institutions in each link of the review,so as to comprehensively present the entire operation mechanism of the constitutional review.