以“合宪性、涉宪性”为方法——从“连坐规定案”审查意见的方法逻辑切入

Constitutionality and Constitutional Relevance:From the Perspective of the Review Opinion on the“Collective Punishment Case”

《全国人民代表大会常务委员会关于完善和加强备案审查制度的决定》第5条规定了涉宪性审查、合宪性审查的双审原理结构:一是通过涉宪性审查穷尽法律问题,通常情形下,合法性审查已实现有效审查,作为重要备位机制的合宪性审查不再启动;例外情形下,穷尽法律问题仍未能实现有效审查,则进而展开合宪性审查。二是通过合宪性审查援引宪法依据,当明确条款并依序援引,禁止向抽象的法规范逃逸。其中,在基本权利审查场域,具体的基本权利规范优先援引,进而依需要辅助援引或单独援引“概括性人权条款”。据此方法规范,“连坐规定案”审查意见在对“连”与“坐”涉宪性审查后,关于“连”的合宪性审查继续展开,所诉诸的“宪法第二章关于‘公民的基本权利和义务’规定的原则和精神”,包括优先援引的第38条人的尊严条款、第33条第2款平等权条款以及补强援引的第33条第3款“概括性人权条款”。

Article 5 of the Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Improving and Strengthening the Filing Review System provides for a dual-trial structure of“constitutionality review and constitutional relevance review.”As the“first case”of filing review in 2023:collective punishment provision case,the review opinion vividly presents this methodological logic.The first step is“constitutional relevance review”.Legal issues on constitutional relevance are primarily exhausted through a constitutional relevance review.Usually,the legality review will achieve an effective outcome,as an essential backup mechanism of constitutionality review is no longer activated;only in exceptional cases,if the exhaustion of legal issues still f ails to obtain an effective review,and then proceed to constitutionality review.The legal issues that need to be exhausted in“collective punishment cases”can be structurally summarized into two categories:“collective”and“punishment.”After analyzing the legality of the“guilt by association”as contrary to“the principle of self-responsibility”,it went further to review the constitutionality,stating that“It is inconsistent with the principles and obligations of Chapter II of the Constitution on the‘Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens’”.As for the review of“punishment”,the legality review of“not conforming to the principles and spirit of national laws and regulations on education,employment,social security,etc.”has already been effectively reviewed,and no further constitutionality review wi ll be carried out.Secondly,“constitutionality review”will be launched if the above review does not satisfy the expectation.When citing the constitutional basis in the constitutionality review,the provisions should be clearly defined and sequentially quoted,and escape to abstract legal norms is prohibited.In the domain of fundamental rights review,it should be insisted that the specific fundamental rights norms should be cited first,and then,according to the needs of review,the“general human rights provisions”should be cited in addition to or separately;if it is still necessary,it can be further resorted to the provisions of the more general constitutional principle of the rule of law and so on.Accordingly,the“principles and spirit of the provisions of ChapterⅡof the Constitution on the‘Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens’”cited in the“collective punishment cases”include Article 38 of Human Dignity,Article 33(2)of equal right,and Article 33(3)on the“general human rights provisions,”which may be cited in addition.This paper is a methodological study of constitutionality review,and its significance is presented in three dimensions of the flow back and forth:firstly,based on the review opinion of the“collective punishment cases”,the argumentation and the supporting methodological principles are refined for the case analysis of t he substantive issues;secondly,by applying the principle of exhaustion of legal issues,the prohibition of escape to abstract legal norms and other basic jurisprudence to the scenario of reviewing the constitutionality of normative documents,it explored and constructed the normative connotation and methodological structure of Article 5 of the Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Improving and Strengthening the Filing Review System;thirdly,the fundamental jurisprudence in the fields of constitutionality review and jurisprudence methodology is applied to the abstract review of normative documents,which presents some specific methodological logic and specific principles,which itself feeds back and enriches the fundamental jurisprudence of constitutionality review.