| In the constitutional reform of the late Qing Dynasty, the impeachment of the Junji by the Zizheng Yuan was a momentous event. This paper would be a reinterpretation of the event in the perspective of the constitutional law. The impeachment had some connection with the constitutionalist's petition for establishing the due parliament. The Qing government had denied establishing the parliament immediately which caused the disappointment of the constitutionalist. Thus the constitutionalist took Zizheng Yuan as the quasi-parliament and controlled the majority of the assembly. The majority of Zizheng Yuan claimed the legislative power that performed by the Xianzhengbiancha Guan practically, and they also challenge the legitimacy and authority of the Japanese-style Regius Constitution. They imagined Zizheng Yuan as the "almighty" British-style parliament and the Junji Chu as the cabinet government, and claimed that the Junji Chu should be responsible to Zizheng Yuan. Accordingly, when they found the Junji irresponsible, they impeached it.In fact, in the background of the dual constitutional monarchy system fitted by the Regius Constitution, there was no legal basis for the impeachment of the Junji, for both the subject and the object of the impeachment were not qualified. However, in the battle between Zizheng Yuan and the Junji on behalf of the royal dictatorship, the members of Zizheng Yuan had tried to push the constitutional revolution actually. They took the British-style constitutionalism as the paradigm. Their ideology was full of the constitutional thoughts originated from the enlightenment thinkers. But there's also dark side in the legacy of the impeachment. The members of the "quasi-parliament" had show no respect for the positive law, and had exceed their authority and broken the law, which set up the bad precedent for the congress of the early republic of China. |
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