Constitutionalism with Chinese Characteristics? - Constitutional Development and Civil Litigation in China

Thomas E. Kellogg 

affiliation not provided to SSRN
February 1, 2008

Indiana University Research Center for Chinese Politics & Business Working Paper No. 1 
Abstract:      
What do constitutional rights provisions mean? More importantly, perhaps, which state organ is responsible for interpreting and applying those provisions? When a court cites a constitutional norm, is it not, at least implicitly, giving some legal meaning to that norm?

Consider the following case: In 2004, ethnic minority musician and prominent local artist Xuan Ke brought suit in Lijiang City Intermediate Court in Southwestern Yunnan province, claiming that his right of reputation had been infringed by an article in the Beijing-based Arts Criticism magazine. The author of the article, scholar Wu Xueyuan, argued that Xuan’s music was in fact not a product of the local ethnic minority culture, and that Xuan’s misrepresentation of his music amounted to fraud.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 40

Full text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2169298