Editor's note

• Author: HU Tianlong
• Pages: 590-591

FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA

VOL. 11 DECEMBER 2016 NO. 4

DOI 10.3868/s050-005-016-0036-4

FOCUS

DISCIPLINED APPROACHES FOR CONSTRUCTING A RULE OF LAW ORDER:

RECONSIDERATIONS REVISED

EDITOR’S NOTE

HU Tianlong ∗

It is an honor to introduce this Focus on “Disciplined Approaches for Constructing a

Rule of Law Order: Reconsiderations Revisited,” which contains two articles contributed

by Dr. YAN Tian and Prof. HU Tianlong. Admittedly, this Focus primarily aims to

conceptualize new elements of the rule of law rhetoric faced by Chinese scholars. The

two articles brought in a broad, doctrinal, yet incisive, critical review and reconsideration

on how the rule of law construction in modern China may accommodate

constantly-changing social movements and understandings as well as fiscal and taxation

policies, and how China may take practical steps to implement such adjustments.

In “Social Movement and Constitutional Change: The Case of the United States,” Dr.

YAN Tian insightfully argues that social movement challenges the theory of

constitutional change in contemporary US with its core concern of balancing and

maintaining legal and political authorities of the Constitution through judicial

interpretation. Moreover, given that the influence of social movement on judicial

interpretation must be restricted in order to ameliorate the conflicts between political and

legal authorities of the Constitution, both the pluralists and republicans put forward

different schemes in this regard in the US. Dr. YAN further diagnostically submits that

similar social movement has entered the agenda of implementing the Constitution in

China. Since late 20th Century, civil society movement started to appear, citizens’

consciousness of their rights has been awakening, the reforming process of the rule of law

has sped up, and the ruling party began to emphasize the status of the Constitution in

China’s national life. In sum, Dr. YAN proposes that the development of constitutional

evolution theory in the US showed that social movement was closely related to the

success or failure of implementing the Constitution. Accordingly, it will be of great

benefit in thinking about the local path of implementing the Constitution through

∗ (胡天龙) S.J.D. in Tax Law and International Law, The University of Michigan Law School; Associate

Professor of Law, School of Law, Renmin University of China; Research Fellow, PRC Ministry of Education

National Center for Civil and Commercial Law, Renmin University of China; Research Fellow, International

Monetary Institute, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China. Contact: hut@umich.edu