| The relationship between royalty and law is one of the important contents of state political relationship in both antiquity and modern times. In the political normality of China’s feudal autocratic monarch system, law is governed by royalty while royalty is limited by law, and royalty is protected by law while law is respected by royalty, they check and harmonize with each other. There exist a fairly perfect system to limit royalty and strict legislative and judicial procedure in China’s traditional society.To the relationship between royalty and legislation, emperors of feudal dynasties played a decisive role in three crucial sectors of legislation, that is, the decision of compilation, the order of revision and the promulgation of law. In this mean, the state that “law deriving from emperor” is proper. But from the view of the process of compilation, legal system, frame, concrete clauses, and the final legal version are the collective wisdom of the legislative ministers, and the emperor only approves, agrees and puts it into action. In this mean, the state that “law deriving from emperor” is not proper, at least, it is not in line with history. The author maintains that this ancient legislative way could be prescribed as “common legislative system by emperor and ministers”. As to the relationship between feudal royal power and judicature, most of the earlier emperors of each dynasty can abide by law and establish royal authority through law. When royal power conflicted with law, emperors can accept the ministers’ expostulations and abide by law. This is due to the lesson from the former dynasty, the edification of Confucian and the limitation of legal provisions and systems. To the emperors themselves, as for the relationship between power and law, their earlier stage was also better than later stage. It is nearly a law in China’s feudal time that earlier emperors abide by law but later emperors ruin law. Key words: royal power, “Kai Huang Lv” of Sui dynasty, “law deriving from emperor”, “common legislative system by emperor and ministers” |
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