中世立憲思想 : 西洋立憲主義の思想史的基層

抄録

Although Western constitutionalism has little to do with a written constitution, since the Meiji Era constitutional theorists in Japan have concentrated their studies mainly on the written constitutional Code or documents. So, it tends to overlooked that modern constitutionalism originated in medieval constitutional thought, especially Christian doctrines and the rule of law tradition. I think that the following two stands form the central factors of the Western constitutionalism. First, arbitrary power-exercised by the power-holders should be denied and rejected. And secondly, in order to restrict the exercise of such arbitrary power, the rule of law should be available and applied. In this essay, I concentrate my attention on the Western characteristic Weltanschauung or Ontologie, that is to say, "All things are created by the Creator", and attempt to point out that Roman Catholic Church offered a notion of the separation of the power-holder and the decision-maker. And probably, this notion is one of the basic ideas that Western constitutionalism contains.