Split Sovereignty: The Way By Which Constitutional Law Being A Part Of Bentham's Law System

In his early works of law,Bentham claims that a law may be defined as an assemblage of signs declarative of a volition conceived or adopted by the sovereign in a state.He also holds the opinions that the power of sovereign is unlimited and can not be limited by the law unless he claims to be limited by a treaty between him and another sovereign.But in the Constitutional Code,a very significant book,Bentham claims that as a part of law system,constitutional law can limit the power of sovereign. And therefore,a paradox consists in Bentham's law system.The thesis begins with an exposition concerning Bentham's early sovereignty theory,and then goes further to a discussion about the whole connotation of sovereignty.According to Bentham's sovereignty theory,the dynamic relationship between people and sovereign constitutes the sovereignty.With the reason that people always interact with sovereign,there is no one who can be completely supreme in this relationship.People in this relationship play a very important role;thus the sovereign in a state will not promulgate a constitutional law that only contains his own volition. In order to make his dominion live long,the sovereign has to take the volition of people into consideration and then make it compressed in the future constitutional law. The constitutional law then gets moral sanction from public sphere,and the moral sanction forces the sovereign to limit his power by himself.Constitutional law could also be a kind of law for the fact that it has two essential elements of an individual law which are the action and the volition with regard to the action.Bentham claims that people play two kinds of roles in the dynamic relationship mentioned above.One role played by people is to elect or dismiss officials and the other is to be a member of Public Opinion Tribunal.By doing this,people who holds the political sovereignty have the strength to contend against the sovereign who holds the legal sovereignty.As a result,the constitutional law containing the volition of both people and sovereign can be able to compel the sovereign to limit his power by himself.