Challenge of exception to procedural democracy: constitutional emergency power

The problem of the exception raised by Carl Schmitt challenges procedural democracy during transitional period, in particular in today's Eastern Europe and tomorrow's China. This paper attempts to defend the coherence of proceduralism by discussing and overcoming the problem of the exception. It examines and criticizes the arguments in Schmitt's theory of the exception and formulates a basic liberal idea of the exception. It also provides a theoretical basis for revising articles concerning emergency power in the 1982 Constitution in China.