Rights
Party leadership written into a constitution courts cannot enforce
The 1982 Constitution is formally supreme, but there is no judicial review: only the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress may rule on constitutionality. Courts cannot decline to apply a statute, so constitutional rights are not directly litigable.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Unitary state. Hong Kong and Macau are separate common-law and civil-law jurisdictions under the Basic Laws and are NOT covered by mainland statutes cited here.
Governing law
- Constitution of the People's Republic of China1982, amended 2018
- Legislation Law of the PRC (arts. 96-99)
- Organic Law of the People's Courts
In practice
The 2018 amendment removed presidential term limits and wrote the leadership of the Communist Party into Article 1. Chapter II lists rights — speech, assembly, religious belief, equality — but Article 51 subordinates them to the interests of the state and society, and no court may strike down legislation for breaching them. Constitutional interpretation is a legislative function, exercised sparingly. Practical rights protection therefore runs through ordinary statutes and administrative litigation against agency conduct rather than constitutional claims.