Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T23:01:39.829Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Judicialization of Politics in Taiwan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2016

Chien-Chih LIN
Chien-Chih LIN*
Affiliation:
Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The judicialization of politics in Taiwan is particularly evident in three domains: the expansion of judicial power, a shift in political equilibrium, and litigation for social change. Yet it is not altogether clear why politicians and social groups are willing to transfer decision-making powers from the political branches to the judiciary, particularly the Constitutional Court. This paper endeavours to fill this academic lacuna by suggesting that the judicialization of politics occurs in Taiwan because both politicians and citizens choose the judiciary as another agent to implement their preferred policies. Nevertheless, Taiwan does not become a juristocracy and, indeed, the pace of the judicialization has slowed down since the second party turnover. The development of the judicialization of politics in Taiwan may shed new light on many old topics, such as judicial supremacy and the relationship between judicial power and political uncertainty.

Keywords

Taiwan’s Constitutional Courtjuristocracyjudicial reviewjudicial empowermentjudicialization of politics
Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , November 2016 , pp. 299 - 326
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their insightful review opinions. This article is adapted from part of my dissertation with major revisions. I would like to thank Professor Wen-Chen Chang, Professor Tom Ginsburg, Professor Jau-Yuan Hwang, Professor Gerald Rosenberg, Shao-Man Lee, and Yi-Li Lee for their comments and suggestions on the draft of this article. Of course all mistakes are mine. Correspondence to Chien-Chih Lin, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. E-mail address: [email protected].

References

Balkin, Jack (2011) Living Originalism, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balkin, Jack, & Levinson, Sanford (2001) “Understanding the Constitutional Revolution.” 87 Virginia Law Review 1045–1109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnum, David (1993) The Supreme Court and American Democracy, Bedford: St Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Baum, Jeeyang Rhee (2005) “Breaking Authoritarian Bonds: The Political Origins of the Taiwan Administrative Procedure Act.” 5 Journal of East Asian Studies 365–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, Lawrence (2006) Judges and Their Audience, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Wen-Chen (2010) “Public Interest Litigation in Taiwan: Strategy for Law and Policy Changes in the Course of Democratization,” in P. J. Yap & H. Lau, eds., Public Interest Litigation in Asia, New York: Routledge, 136–160.Google Scholar
Chang, Wen-Chen (2014) “Courts and Judicial Reform in Taiwan,” in J.-R. Yeh & W.-C. Chang, eds., Asian Courts in Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 143–182.Google Scholar
Cooney, Sean (2004) “The Effects of Rule of Law Principles in Taiwan,” in R. Peerenboom, ed., Asian Discourses of Rule of Law, New York: Routledge, 411–439.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert (1957) “Decision-Making in a Democracy: The Supreme Court as a National Policy-Maker.” 6 Journal of Public Law 279–295.Google Scholar
Davis, Michael (1987) “A Government of Judges: An Historical Review.” 35 American Journal of Comparative Law 559–580.Google Scholar
Diamond, Larry (2008) The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies throughout the World, New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dressel, Björn (2014) “The Judicialization of Politics in Asia,” in B. Dressel, ed., The Judicialization of Politics in Asia, New York: Routledge, 1–14.Google Scholar
Epp, Charles (1998) The Rights Revolution. Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ferejohn, John (2002) “Judicializing Politics, Politicizing Law.” 65 Law & Contemporary Problems 41–68.Google Scholar
Finkel, Jodi (2008) Judicial Reform as Political Insurance, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Garoupa, Nuno, & Ginsburg, Tom (2015) Judicial Reputation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Garoupa, Nuno, et al. (2011) “Explaining Constitutional Review in New Democracies: The Case of Taiwan.” 20 Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal 1–40.Google Scholar
Gibson, Jamesm, & Caldeira, Gregory (2009) Citizens, Courts, and Confirmations: Positivity Theory and the Judgements of the American People, Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginsburg, Tom (2003) Judicial Review in New Democracies: Constitutional Courts in Asian Cases, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ginsburg, Tom (2008) “Administrative Law and the Judicial Control of Agent,” in T. Ginsburg & T. Moustafa, eds., Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 58–72.Google Scholar
Ginsburg, Tom (2009) “Constitutional Courts in East Asia: Understanding Variation,” in A. Harding & P. Leyland, eds., Constitutional Courts: A Comparative Study, London: Wildy, Simmonds & Hill Publishing, 291–317.Google Scholar
Ginsburg, Tom (2013) “The Politics of Courts in Democratization,” in D. Kapiszewski, et al., eds., Consequential Courts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 45–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graber, Mark (1993) “The Nonmajoritarian Difficulty: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary.” 7 Studies in American Political Development 35–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graber, Mark (2008) “The Countermajoritarian Difficulty: From Courts to Congress to Constitutional Order.” 4 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 361–384.Google Scholar
Guarnieri, Carlo, & Pederzoli, Patrizia (2002) The Power of Judges, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harding, Andrew, & Nicholson, Penelope (2010) “New Courts in Asia,” in A. Harding & P. Nicholson, eds., New Courts in Asia, New York: Routledge, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helmke, Gretchen (2005) Courts under Constraints, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hirschl, Ran (2008) “The Judicialization of Politics,” in K. E. Whittington, et al., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 119–141.Google Scholar
Hirschl, Ran (2009) Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel (1993) The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Kagan, Robert (2001) Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kapiszewski, Diana, et al. (2013) “Introduction,” in D. Kapiszewski, et al., eds., Consequential Courts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–41.Google Scholar
Keck, Thomas (2014) Judicial Politics in Polarized Times, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Larry (2001) “Foreword: We the Court.” 115 Harvard Law Review 5–170.Google Scholar
Kramer, Larry (2004) The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuo, Ming-Sung (2016) “Towards a Nominal Constitutional Court?” 25 Washington International Law Journal (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Law, David (2009) “A Theory of Judicial Power and Judicial Review.” 97 Georgetown Law Journal 723–802.Google Scholar
Levinson, Daryl (2011) “Parchment and Politics: The Positive Puzzle of Constitutional Commitment.” 124 Harvard Law Review 657–746.Google Scholar
Lin, Chien-Chih (2014) “Majoritarian Judicial Review: The Case of Taiwan.” 9 NTU Law Review 103–160.Google Scholar
Lo, Chang-fa (2011) “Taiwan: External Influences Mixed with Traditional Elements to Form Its Unique Legal System,” in E. A. Black & G. F. Bell, eds., Law and Legal Institutions of Asia: Traditions, Adaptations and Innovations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 91–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovell, George, & Lemieux, Scott (2006) “Assessing Juristocracy: Are Judges Rulers or Agents.” 65 Maryland Law Review 100–114.Google Scholar
Marshall, Thomas (2008) Public Opinion and the Rehnquist Court, New York: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Mazmanyan, Armen (2015) “Judicialization of Politics: The Post-Soviet Way.” 13 International Journal of Constitutional Law 200–218.Google Scholar
McCloskey, Robert (2010) The American Supreme Court, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCubbins, Mathew, & Schwartz, Thomas (1984) “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms.” 28 American Journal of Political Science 165–179.Google Scholar
Merrill, Thomas (1997) “Does Public Choice Theory Justify Judicial Activism After All.” 21 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 219–231.Google Scholar
Park, Jonghyun (2008) “The Judicialization of Politics in Korea.” 10 Asia Pacific Law & Policy Journal 62–113.Google Scholar
Peretti, Terri Jennings (1999) In Defense of a Political Court, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard (2008) How Judges Think, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Post, Robert, & Siegel, Reva (2007) “Roe Rage: Democratic Constitutionalism and Backlash.” 42 Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review 373–433.Google Scholar
Rosen, Jeffrey (2006) The Most Democratic Branch: How The Courts Serve America, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart (1974) The Politics of Rights: Lawyers, Public Policy, and Political Change, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin (1999) “The Success of Judicial Review,” in S. J. Kenney, et al., eds., Constitutional Dialogues in Comparative Perspective, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 193–219.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin, & Sweet, Alec Stone (2002) On Law, Politics, and Judicialization, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sieder, Rachel, et al. (2005) “Introduction,” in R. Sieder , et al, eds., Judicialization of Politics in Latin America, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–20.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Gordon (2009) Law’s Allure: How Law Shapes, Constrains, Saves, and Kills Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Matthew (2003) “‘When the Devil Turns …’: The Political Foundations of Independent Judicial Review.” 32 The Journal of Legal Studies 59–89.Google Scholar
Stone Sweet, Alec (2000) Governing with Judges: Constitutional Politics in Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass (2001) One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tate, C. Neal, & Vallinder, Torbjörn (1995) The Global Expansion of Judicial Power, New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark (2006) “Political Power and Judicial Power: Some Observations on Their Relation.” 75 Fordham Law Review 755–768.Google Scholar
Vanberg, Georg (2008) “Establishing and Maintaining Judicial Independence,” in K. E. Whittington, et al., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 99–118.Google Scholar
Whittington, Keith (2005) “‘Interpose Your Friendly Hand’: Political Supports for the Exercise of Judicial Review by the United States Supreme Court.” 99 American Political Science Review 583–596.Google Scholar
Yang, Yu-Ling (1998) “Tafakuan Tiêrhliuihao Chiehshih Yü Wokuo Hsienchêng Fachan.” 23 Hsienchêng Shihtai 3–21.Google Scholar
Yeh, Jiunn-rong (2008) “Democracy-Driven Transformation to Regulatory State: The Case of Taiwan.” 3 NTU Law Review 31–59.Google Scholar
Yeh, Jiunn-rong (2010) “Presidential Politics and the Judicial Facilitation of Dialogue between Political Actors in New Asian Democracies: Comparing the South Korean and Taiwanese Experiences.” 8 International Journal of Constitutional Law 911–949.Google Scholar
Yeh, Jiunn-rong, & Chang, Wen-Chen (2011) “The Emergence of East Asian Constitutionalism: Features in Comparison.” 59 American Journal of Comparative Law 805–839.Google Scholar