Among legal specialists both inside and outside China there is a wide variety of differing opinions on the sources of law. These include the historical sources of legal evolution, ideological sources for the law, roots of the law, the materials that make up the law and so on. But the majority of them refer to the sources whereby the law gets its power. That is to say, the various types of law which are decided upon or recognized by various State organs and have differing legal status or legal force. These include the Constitution, the laws, various administrative regulations, precedents, customs and legal theory. The sources of the law discussed here have to start from this definition. Looking at the various types of law from the point of view of the relationship between_ form and_content it can be seen that, in fact, there are many different standard forms of law and these are manifested in the contents of these standard forms. Therefore, we can consider that the question of the sources of law is a type of question relating to the forms of law. We must be careful that documents with actual legal force that are enacted by state organs are not all sources of the law. Only those that have a standard form and can be used again and again and have a general binding force can be considered sources of the law. As to those non-standard documents enacted by state organs, which the State organs have enacted and are within their proper powers and have cropped up in the course of the application of the law, these are not considered sources of the law even though they have legal force. Examples are documents issued for particular people or on particular occasions such
proclamations of appointment, marriage certificates, arrest warrants and so on.
as,
The state organs for enacting laws are different in every state and thus there are very many different types of source of the law. The system of sources of the law in any particular state comes about when an orderly unified system has been produced out of these various sources with varying powers and having mutual
relations and control.
Constitution
In our country, according to the provisions in the and the laws, the main sources of the law are as follows:
1.
The Constitution.
The
Constitution is the basic law of the state. It is decided upon by the supreme organ of the state, that is to say, the National People's Congress. Its legal position is higher than all other laws and regulations and it has the supreme legal force. It is the main source of law in our country. All other laws and regulations that are enacted must be based on the Constitution and cannot be in contravention of it.
2.
The Laws
In
It
this context, the term `laws' has a relatively narrow meaning. is used only to designate those legal documents in a standard form that have been enacted by the supreme organ of state power and its
permanent body that is to say, by the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee. According to the provisions of our Constitution, there are two main types of law in our country: the first is basic laws such as the Criminal Code, the Civil Code
and the Basic Laws for State organs and so on, these are enacted and amended by the National People's Congress. When the National People's Congress is not in Session, its Standing Committee can, make partial additions to or amendments to the Basic Laws, but these cannot be in contravention of the basic
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