Abstract: The North Song Dynasty (960-1127) saw the emergence of a unique governance system foundamentally similar to the modern responsible government where a set of customary laws established by unwritten laws (ancestral laws) were promoted to courtly political codes. Meanwhile monarchs became figureheads of the state and the prime ministers had to invariably assume responsibility for any error in running the country. At the very beginning of the North Song Dynasty a series of political principles were established, including: 1) “scholars and bureaucrats sharing the country with the emperor” was an unchangeable political custom while “monarch acting as the figurehead while prime minister running the country” became a governance structure with highly effective check on the imperial power; 2) the responsible government made sure that “the emperor reigns but not rules” as it separated political power from sovereignty with the prime minister weighing more in the balance of executive power; and 3) censorship had high position in the North Song Dynasty, exercising greater restriction on executive power than in any other historical periods to guarantee balance of the power trio-the emperor, the prime minister and the censorship.

Key words: North Song Dynasty (960-1127), figurehead monarch and real-power prime minister, responsible government, power separation, impeachment, refutation