“宪法渊源”意味着什么?——基于法理论的思考

What Does "Constitutional Sources" Mean?

要走出关于"宪法渊源"既有讨论的僵局,就要上升到法理论的层面去澄清"法的渊源"的性质与类型。法的渊源指的是法律适用过程中裁判依据的来源,在法律论证中发挥着权威理由的角色。它既包括法的效力渊源,又包括法的认知渊源,后者须获得前者认可并与之相结合才能发挥作用。相应地,宪法渊源指的是宪法的法律化适用过程中合宪性判断依据的来源,它属于权威和形式的范畴,要与作为实质和内容范畴的"宪法部门"严格相区分。这一意义上的宪法渊源主要在合宪性审查和合宪性解释两种情形中"出场"。在此基础上,就可以对当代中国宪法的诸效力渊源和认知渊源进行定位,并有效地与合宪性判断活动可能运用到的其他宪法性材料区分开来。

To get out of the stalemate in the discussion about sources of constitution,it is necessary to rise to the level of legal theory to clarify the nature and types of sources of law.The sources of law refer to the sources of the grounds of adjudication in the process of law application,which play a role of authoritative reasons in legal argumentation.Sources of law include not only the sources of legal validity,but also the sources of legal cognition.The latter must be recognized by the former and combined with it to be effective.Correspondingly,sources of constitution refer to the sources of the grounds for judging the constitutionality in the legal application of the constitution.This concept belongs to the category of authority and form,and must be strictly distinguished from the"constitutional department"as the category of substance and content.The sources of constitution in this sense are mainly"in attendance"in two occasions:constitutional review and constitutional interpretation.On this basis,it is possible to locate the sources of validity and sources of cognition of the contemporary Chinese constitution,and effectively distinguish it from other materials with constitutional importance that may be used in constitutional judgment activities.