自由主义宪政观评析——兼论宪政的核心价值

上世纪90年代中期之后,自由主义宪政观理论被大量介绍进中国,为相当部分学者接受。自由主义宪政观否定宪政的核心价值是民主,主张宪政的核心价值是国家权力的有限性,是保护个人自由。他们所说的个人自由的核心权域是私有财产自由,他们所说的国家权力有限性实质是以私有财产制度为基础的经济活动自治性,自由民主政体也不是所谓共和政体而具有鲜明利益色彩,当代自由主义者将个人自由的制度保障寄托于给司法注入政治功能。我们坚持民主是宪政的核心价值,实质就是要坚持大多数人民的利益至上,规范、限制国家权力只能主要依靠民主进行,违宪审查也只能在民主制度的大框架内运作。

Liberal Constitutional Ideas: Concurrently on the Core Values of Constitutionalism

From the mid-1990s,liberal constitutional ideas began to pour into China and were accepted by many scholars.In terms of the values of constitutionalism,the ideas negate democracy while maintaining limited state government and protection of individual liberties.For their purposes,the core domain of individual liberties means liberties of private property,and limited government means self-governance of economic activities based on the system of private property.The liberal and democratic polity that they contend is by no means a so-called republican but rather one with a tinge of interests.Present-day liberalists pin their hopes to build an individual liberty system on introducing political function into judiciary.The present writer maintains that democracy is the core value of the constitutionalism,i.e.that the interest of the majority is of supremacy.It is up to democracy that state power is to be regulated and constrained.Even the constitutional review must be held within the ambit of democracy.