The 1946 Chinese Constitution, 1st Jan., 2011.

Thomas E. Greiff has an article in the China Quarterly, titled "The Principle of Human Rights in Nationalist China: John C. H. Wu and the Ideological Origins of the 1946 Constitution."

Reading the 1946 Constitution one sees much syncretism of China and the west, but little balance between the individual and the collective. True to the spirit of Nationalist China of the 1930s, this Constitution tips that balance almost exclusively in favour of the state. [ . . . ]

The 1946 Constitution provides for protection of property, freedom of speech, [32] religion, [33] association and assembly, [34] freedom to choose residence, [35] and secrecy of correspondence. [36] It also grants familiar political rights, such as the right to vote and the institutions of initiative, referendum and recall, [37] and the right to petition the government. [38] It also enacts the institution of habeas corpus and a number of other due-process type limitations on arbitrariness in the criminal process. [39] Finally, the specifically Chinese right to sit for civil service examinations is guaranteed. [40] [ . . . ]

This positivist, legislative notion of the source of rights also leads to limits on who may exercise rights. This is the so-called "principle of revolutionary right." [43] Article 7 of the Constitution provides for equality before the law for all citizens. [44] Article 1, however, provides that "The Republic of China is a san-min chu-i [sanmin zhuyi] Republic." [45] The practice built up before 1946 was that anyone who opposed the National Revolution or the Three Principles of the People was legitimately denied his rights. [46] This continued under the Constitution. [47] This gave great power to the Kuomintang and again suggested the priority of national claims over individual claims; it also represented a serious derogation of the principle of the rule of law: it allowed the government, on political grounds, arbitrarily to define a category of citizens to whom it could constitutionally deny rights on a systematic basis.

[ . . . ] In its final version, Article 23 provided:

The freedoms and rights enumerated in the preceding articles shall not be restricted by law, except in cases where such a restriction is necessary for preventing an obstruction of the freedoms of other persons, averting an imminent crisis, maintaining social order, or promoting the public interest. [49]