Sun Zhongshan "the separation of power" and "separation of five powers" thought commentary

Li Lei, an industry

The great revolutionary forerunner Mr. Sun Zhongshan devoted his life to the cause of revolution, was extremely hard and bitter struggle for national independence, democracy and prosperity, he is a great revolutionary, at the same time, he made many achievements in constitutional theory, "separation of power" and "separation of five powers" thought is the essence of the theory of constitutional government.

One, "the separation of power"

Mr Sun Zhongshan first expressed "separation of power" in his thought, was published in 1922, "the Republic of China Construction basis" in an article: "political sovereignty lies in the people, or directly to the exercise of, or indirectly by the exercise of. The indirect exercise of people's representatives, or the people entrusted, only to do their best, not steal the right. The freedom of people still in stating." [1] Mr. Sun Zhongshan to the country's political power as "regime" (or "civil rights") and "governance" in two parts, he said: "politics is everybody's business, big power set all things, is called the power; power can be said that the civil rights. Governance is the management of public affairs, big power set the management of public affairs, it is called the right of administration. So the political, contains two forces: one is the power, is a right of administration. These two forces, one is the management of government power, one is the government's power." [2] "in our plan, the new state to cause, is to put the country's political power divided into two. One is the power, the power to take fully into the hands of people, people have full power can directly go to the management of the affairs of the state. The regime is the civil rights. One is the right to rule, to put this right into the government within the organization, to the government has the power to national affairs management greatly. The right of administration, is the power of the government." "Separation of power" is a "power separation".

In this way, the country's political power is divided into two parts: one part is "regime", or called "civil rights", referred to as the "right"; as part of the "governance", referred to as "". "Separation of power" in order to create a universal welfare for the people, in the people's master "regime" under the premise, the "governance" completely in the hands of the government to exercise, "if the government is good, we have thousands of people took him as Zhu Geliang, the whole power of the state to give them; if the government is not good, we have thousands of people can exercise the emperor authority, to recall them, back of the nation." [3]

Sun Zhongshan put the "civil rights" is divided into four parts, they are for people to understand and exercise, "the people elected officials: right, people, history & right, people create the bill of rights, the people have a referendum bill of rights, this is called the four civil rights also." The right to vote, the right of recall, the initiative and referendum. Among these, the right to vote and dismiss the people management official power, Sun Zhongshan attached very great importance to it, he used a vivid metaphor to illustrate the problem, "for all officers in the government, one out, one back, come and go from the liberty of the people. This is the new style machine, push and pull, can by the machine automatically." [4] and the initiative and referendum is people management legal power, "if you see a law, that is very beneficial to the people, should have a right, it's own decision, to the government to execute. On the right, called the initiative." "If you see the old law before, thought it is not beneficial to the people, will have a right, to modify, modifying, then to modify the new law government to implement the good, old law was abolished. On the right, called the referendum." [5]

Similarly, Sun Zhongshan put the "governance", namely "can", is divided into five parts, namely the legislative, administrative power, judicial power, supervision and examination authority, respectively by the legislature, executive yuan, the Judicial Yuan, supervisory and examination of five organs to exercise. This is Mr. Sun Zhongshan of "separation of power" content. He asserts: with this kind of power and authority, to "create universal government, welfare for the people", "will be epoch-making create a new world in the face of the earth." [6]

Two, "separation of five powers"

"Separation of power" to solve is the legitimacy of the government, the government is under the control of the people, but cannot become the oppression of people's power, but this is only the first step of the problem. Because, in order to make people get real happiness, the government only "good" is not enough, must also have the ability to, in Sun Zhongshan's view, is that the government should become a "universal" government, is guaranteed that the happiness of the people. What am I gonna do? For Mr. Sun out is that the powers of government "separation of five powers", formulated by the National Congress of the constitution. Sun Zhongshan said: "to the government is completely organs, to do good work, will use the five power constitution. The organization with the five power constitution of government, is the entire government, was totally government organs. The government agencies to do work for the people, can be very good very full time."

"Separation of five powers" refers to the division of government into five, independent, respectively, to exercise the five government system. It has already been talked about the specific content of five. Composition and home office is: (1) after the National Assembly constitution, by the county people's vote for the president to the Executive Yuan, the election to group the court house. (2), Dean of judicial examination, supervision institute, by the president of the Legislative Yuan consent was appointed president and legislature, but not for. (3) we are responsible to the national assembly, "the hospital staff dereliction of duty, the supervisory Institute to the National Congress impeachment; and supervisory staff dereliction of duty, by National Congress to impeach the ouster of" [7]. (4) on the examination of the mandate, "the national assembly and the five staff, and the size of government officials, their qualifications by the examination yuan under the" [8]. (5) the right to monitor, as mentioned before, not only can the supervisory Institute of administrative, judicial impeachment, the examination staff, but also elected members of the legislature impeachment. But, subject to supervisory impeachment, not by the hospital itself must be handed over to the National Assembly deposed, and decide whether to recall. Supervisory staff dereliction of duty, by National Congress to impeach and ousted the.

"Separation of five powers" from Europe and the United States of the "separation of the three powers" evolved, a point Mr. Sun Zhongshan didn't deny. He once said: "I said" not I coined, is divided three right impeachment and examination of two rights." "Now we advocate five power three, is now said right, but three rights is the right in the administrative part of additional examination, impeachment is attached to the legislative power." [9] he thought: "foreign regulation and its original regulation, together, the more perfect." "Chinese ancient examination and supervision system, also have very good results, such as the Qing Shi, Tang Jian Yi doctor, are good supervisory system. This system is a power of supervision. The supervision power is the power of impeachment." As for the examination system, the selection of talent, he thinks more China characteristics, this system "is the most fair", "no matter poor nobleman, upon examination, can be an official." He said: "the foreign scholar recently investigated China system, it is very Chinese praise examination independent system, also effective imitation China examination system to select a. Like the British civil service examination recently held, is from the China emulate past." [10]
Mr. Sun Zhongshan from the above discussion can see, he is in the creation of "separation of five powers" of the constitutional scheme, obviously from the western "separation of three powers" theory and Chinese ancient supervision, examination system. Also it can be said that the two is "the theory source separation of five powers" scheme.

Three, the "separation of power", "separation of five powers" theory of positive significance

"Separation of power" embodies the true spirit of democracy. Mr. Sun Zhongshan proposed "separation of power", adhere to the principle of the sovereignty of the people, this is before Chinese all bourgeois constitutionalists, reformists incomparable. This theory firstly solves the problem of government power source -- is the people's award. The people through the constitution, the rights were awarded the exercise of different state organs, people kept the "civil rights", through the national assembly in the form of command and control "the exercise of right of administration", the exercise of "subject rights", be conscientious and do one's best to serve the people, to the servant of the people. All this shining glory of the sovereignty of the people thought. He denied the China stretching for thousands of years of "imperial" thought fundamentally, to the bourgeois revolutionaries pointed out the way forward.

"Separation of five powers" thought reflects the national bourgeoisie wishes to establish bourgeois regime, in Chinese promote national capitalist economic development, expansion of capitalist countries. In the feudal society, the national legislative, judicial, administrative and other powers are concentrated in the administrative officials, to national lack of restriction on power, low efficiency, corruption is inevitable. "Separation of five powers" thought is the evolution of the western "separation of three powers" thought, but it shows the bourgeois revolutionaries in an attempt to solve this problem China problem, for thousands of years and, Mr. Sun Zhongshan in solving this problem does not deviate from the actual, not abandon Chinese excellent part of Chinese culture, the supervision power and the examination power these two kind of Chinese nation "native" added, created Chinese characteristics of "separation of five powers" scheme.

Mr. Sun Zhongshan "the separation of power" and "separation of five powers" thought, still have positive significance in the reform and opening up, people's democratic constitutionalism today. Today, if still superstitious "Yixingheyi", which is not conducive to the building of the people's democratic constitutionalism in China. "Yixingheyi" was first put forward by Rousseau, and admired, but the range of his Limited is "small territory and population"; later, the Paris commune practice of this theory, Marx made a timely summary, that should be "yixingheyi". But in practice that is not enough: one is small, the two is in a short time, three failed. The Soviet Union's constitution of 1918 and the 1924 constitution "Yixingheyi" system, but to the Constitution in 1936, it will no longer be "Yixingheyi" system. The new China 1954 Constitution is the constitution of 1936 which was formulated, so that, from the beginning of the new China implementation is not "Yixingheyi" system. We are here not to deny Marx summarizes the Paris commune, commune of Paris implementation of the "Yixingheyi" system that's wartime needs, once in the peace building period, "meeting" and "line" to be separated. "On line separation" and Mr Sun Zhongshan "the separation of power" has different approaches but equally satisfactory results, and the separation of powers and checks and balances are closely related.

Four, the "separation of power", "separation of five powers" theory of defects

We talk about Mr. Sun Zhongshan's "separation of power", "separation of five powers" theory significance, is not to say that his theory has reach the acme of perfection, on the contrary, the constitutional theory of Mr. Sun Zhongshan has many obvious flaws and shortcomings.

Firstly, the theory of advocating technocracy. In this theory, Mr. Sun Zhongshan according to the "personal gift money" is different, the people are divided into "having foresight, belatedly, imperceptibly" three class, while the broad masses of the people belonging to the "imperceptibly", therefore, people can not directly manage state affairs, "only the state affairs, entrusted to the talented people", namely the use of talented people to the management of government. Underestimate the wisdom and strength of the people, and the "separation of power", "separation of five powers" of the spirit of democracy in contradiction, is also a reason for the failure of.
Secondly, we are not scientific authority configuration. For example, according to this theory, executive and legislative officials produced by the counties directly elected, and the control yuan can impeach, to know the supervisory Institute is not a democratically elected institutions, that is to say, the non elected institutions can impeach the elected officials, which in theory is not clear, but also the inherent contradictory.

Once again, the president's status is not clear. How the president position in state government? It is a part of the Executive Yuan, or with five parallel? What is the relationship between it and the National Assembly? Mr. Sun Zhongshan did not discuss these. It is because of this theoretical defects, makes Jiang Jieshi after using this defect, under the banner Sun Zhongshan to steal military and political power, make oneself above five yuan and the national assembly, the tyranny.
From the historical materialism perspective, the constitutional theory of Mr. Sun Zhongshan, at the time of the Chinese, it reached the highest level. Today, we can recognize the defect and deficiency of the theory of Mr. Sun Zhongshan, it is because we are standing on the great theory put forward several years later. We have no reason to blame Mr Sun Zhongshan, can only blame China social practice that is insufficient to make the acquaintance of Mr. Sun Zhongshan reached the height of.