Legal Acts of Manchukuo and Mengjiang: Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The article based of archival and previously unpublished research material is an attempt to restore the legal regulations system of Manchukuo and Mengjiang that had been created as independent states in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and North-East China in the 1930s. The internal and external policies of both political entities were controlled by the Japanese occupation forces. Manchukuo was created as a model state, the standard one, including the matters of public administration and law, and the Mongol-Go was a resource (economic) base of the occupants. The example of Manchukuo serves as a model to show the mechanism of pushing the local authorities to adopt the new legislation, the hierarchy of acts is built at both the initial and later stages of national development. The article provides the characteristics, features and attributes differentiating normative and individual legal acts. The legal nature of law and its place in the system of normative legal acts of both countries are analyzed; the detailed description of the legal acts originating from the various agencies of state power is given. The state system and the public authorities involved in the rule making process are studied; the bodies that participated in the development and adoption of the legislation are marked, as well as the agencies responsible for the administrative ordinance and administrative enactment. The case of Mengjiang facilitated to study the law technique, its features and drawbacks, as well as the reasons for those drawbacks. The authors conclude that in spite of the spiritual, cultural and religious closeness of the two peoples, the building of the state system in terms of rule-making bodies, and the system of normative legal acts differed much in Manchukuo and Mengjiang due to the goals that the Japanese occupation forces sought and that were largely encouraged by the local leadership of the occupied territories. Manchukuo and Mengjiang were eliminated on the 18th and 19th of August, 1945 respectively by the troops of the Soviet Union and Mongolia.