The Chinese Constitutional Social Welfare Articles Before 1949 – Comparison With the Weimar Constitution

Abstract

What had previously been social welfare rights were transformed into constitutional law in the Weimar Constitution of 1919, which established a new constitutional era. The Weimar Constitution was introduced to China very quickly, and the Chinese constitutional drafters combined the traditional ideals of People’s Livelihood and great harmony with the new European constitutional tendency: People’s Livelihood and the equalization of wealth became one of the most important issues in the constitution-making process. From the 1920s to the 1940s, social rights constituted a separate chapter in almost every constitutional draft. But just as a coin has two sides, social rights might come into conflict with basic rights. Within the context of modern legislative history, the fact that the constitutional drafters merged the rigid constitution with the weak rights and separated the social rights from the chapter on the basic rights represents a significant attempt to create a new constitutional structure.

Keywords

• Social welfare rights
• rigid constitution
• weak rights
• the People’s Livelihood Doctrine
• basic state policy