The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

al Prosecutors College (Guojia jianchaguan xueyuan xuebao 國家檢察官學院學報) (March 

2015) 62–70 (in Chinese). See also Zhao Qinglin, ‘Research on the Constitutional Review 

System of the Macau SAR’, in Ieong Wan-chong, Huang Laiji and Li Zhijiang (eds.), Research 

on Special Administrative Region Systems and the National Basic Political System (Tebie xing-

zhengqu zhidu yu woguo jiben zhengzhizhidu yanjiu 特別行政區制度與我國基本政治制度

研究

) (Beijing: China Democracy Press, 2012) 401–3 (in Chinese). Article 19(2) of MBL states: 

‘The courts of the [MSAR] shall have jurisdiction over all cases in the Region, except that the 

restrictions on their jurisdiction imposed by the legal system and principles previously in force 

in Macau shall be maintained.’

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The Constitutional Orders of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ 

249

MSAR on the nature and jurisdiction of TUI has not included a specific route 

of litigation for review of the validity of legal enactments.

65

However, as constitutional issues came to be raised before the Macanese 

courts, the absence of specific constitutional review mechanisms had not pre-

cluded the TUI from raising and examining issues of consistency of laws with 

the MBL as being incidental to the adjudication of disputes that came before 

it by ordinary routes of litigation.

66

 The TUI did that in Burmeister & Wain 

Scandinavian Contractor A/S v. Secretary for Security, Case No 28/2006 (18 

July 2007).

67

 The TUI, having referred to the work of Xiao Weiyun (a main-

land law professor and former drafter of the MBL who later was the founding 

dean of one of the law schools of the MSAR), came to the view that even 

though the MSAR was not a state and the MBL was not in form a constitution, 

the MBL contained certain formal characteristics related to the political con-

stitution of states. Although the MBL has no provision specifically conferring 

upon the courts the power to deal with ‘those legal norms contravening the 

Basic Law that are of inferior rank and present in laws, administrative regu-

lations or other normative documents’, the TUI considered that the MSAR 

courts did have such a power on the basis of a joined interpretation of several 

provisions of the MBL, namely arts. 11(2), 19(2) and 143.

68

 ‘The Basic Law does 

not establish any mechanism, especially political mechanism to resolve the 

question of possible conflicts in judicial proceedings between the Basic Law 

and legal norms in other laws having effect. Therefore, the conclusion that it 

must be for the courts to hear these questions in the specific cases committed 

before them must necessarily be drawn’.

69

Having considered further the writings of Xiao and another Mainland 

Chinese jurist Wang Zhenmin,

70

 the TUI concluded that as the MSAR courts 

65 

TUI Case No 9/2006 (25 October 2006) 8.

66 

Ibid.

, where the TUI specifically indicated that the parties to litigation may seek judicial re-

view of legal enactments of lower rank on the ground of contravention with the MBL, but that 

this must proceed through ordinary procedures of litigation.

67 

The judgment is published in the Gazette of the Macao Special Administrative Region, Issue 

No 37 (12 September 2007) 7871–929. See also TUI Case No 9/2006 (25 October 2006).

68 

TUI Case No 28/2006 (18 July 2007) 28 (對那些位階較低的、載於法律、行政法規或其他

規範性文件中的違反《基本法》的法律規範作出審理的可能

). In a footnote to the pas-

sage, the Macau Court of Final Appeal referred to the fact that in the United States there was 

no constitutional provision expressly conferring upon the courts the power of constitutional 

review.

69 

Ibid.

, 29 (《基本法》沒有設立任何機制，尤其是政治性的機制去解決在司法訴訟中出

現的、《基本法》與載於其他生效法規中的法律規範的可能衝突的問題，因此不得不

得出由法院在交付其審理的具體個案中，審理這些問題的結論。

).

70 

Wang Zhenmin, then the dean of the School of Law of Tsinghua University, added the point 

that the courts of the special administrative region are responsible for supervising the imple-

mentation of the Basic Law. It follows from this and the conferring of the power to interpret 

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250