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Global constitutionalism in Taiwan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2021

Chien-Chih Lin Open the ORCID record for Chien-Chih Lin [Opens in a new window]
Chien-Chih Lin*
Affiliation:
Academia Sinica, Taiwan
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In contrast with the decline of liberal constitutionalism around the world, liberal constitutionalism seems to be resilient in Taiwan. Weaving together several threads of history, law and politics, this article first argues that foreign legal education and identity concerns explain why judicial review and constitutional development more broadly in Taiwan have not only flourished but mirrored both German and American constitutional jurisprudence. Second, it maintains that the case of Taiwan poses another challenge to the concept of global constitutionalism since the number of referenced jurisdictions is quite limited.

Keywords

global constitutionalismjudicial reviewliberal constitutionalismnational identityTaiwan Constitutional Court
Type
Research Article
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , July 2021 , pp. 275 - 289
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 See, for example, Graber, Mark A, Levinson, Sanford and Tushnet, Mark (eds), Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? (Oxford University Press, New York, 2018)Google Scholar.

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4 The term ‘global constitutionalism’ is a multifaceted concept. In this article, I adopt the symposium’s definition: ‘the global influence of ideas and institutions of constitutionalism into nation-states throughout the globe’.

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9 Admittedly, metaphors such as migration or transplantation are vague, and their meanings often overlap. Aware of the debates revolving around metaphors, this article uses transplantation to refer to more ‘mechanical’ use of foreign law and uses ‘migration’ to refer to less ‘mechanical’ use. For the battles of these metaphors, see Sujit Choudhry, ‘Migration as a New Metaphor in Comparative Constitutional Law’ in Sujit Choudhry (ed), The Migration of Constitutional Ideas (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007) 1; Vlad Perju, ‘Constitutional Transplants, Borrowing, and Migrations’ in Michel Rosenfeld and András Sajó (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012) 1304, 1306–08; Andrew Harding, ‘The Legal Transplants Debate’ in Vito Breda (ed), Legal Transplants in East Asia and Oceania (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019) 13, 26–27.

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11 It is noteworthy that the Administrative Procedure Act also consulted the design of the Administrative Procedure Act of the United States and that of Japan during the drafting process. In the final version, the American influence is most obvious in the chapters regarding hearing proceedings and notice and comment. See Jiunn-rong Yeh, When Taiwan Confronts Administrative Procedure Act (Angle, Taipei, 2002) [in Chinese] 41–70, 320–21.

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23 Ibid.

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26 See JY Interpretation No. 530 (2001) (Taiwan).

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28 See Article 13 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of Republic of China (1991) (Taiwan).

29 See JY Interpretation No. 371 (1995) (Taiwan).

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35 Alec Stone Sweet and Jud Mathews, ‘Proportionality Balancing and Global Constitutionalism’ (2008) 47 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 72, 97–111.

36 Article 23 of the Constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan) (1947). Emphasis added.

37 Chien-Chih Lin, ‘Proportionality in Taiwan: American-German Fusion’ in Po Jen Yap (ed), Proportionality in Asia (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2020).

38 Apotheken-Urteil 7 BVerfGE 377 (1958).

39 See JY Interpretation No. 584 (2004) (Taiwan).

40 For the tiered review standards in the Pharmacy case, see Niels Petersen, ‘The German Constitutional Court and Legislative Capture’ (2014) 12 International Journal of Constitutional Law 650, 665. For the incorporation into the TCC’s jurisprudence, see JY Interpretation No. 711 (2013) (Taiwan) (Tang J concurring).

41 Tonio Klein, ‘Who Amends the German Basic Law?’ in Hermann-Josef Blanke et al. (eds), Common European Legal Thinking (Springer, Cham, 2015) 141, 144.

42 Ginsburg, Tom, ‘Freedom of Expression Abroad’ in Bollinger, Lee C and Stone, Geoffrey R (eds), The Free Speech Century (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019) 193, 198–203 Google Scholar.

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44 See Chaplinsky v New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942). See Martin H Redish, ‘The Value of Free Speech’ (1982) 130 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 591, 625.

45 Tzu -Yi Lin, ‘Introduction to Free Speech’ in Maw-In Tsai et al. (eds), The Anatomy of Taiwan Constitution (Angel, Taipei, 2002) 103, 159–60 [in Chinese].

46 See JY Interpretation No. 445 (1998) (Taiwan).

47 See Lin (n 45) 155.

48 See JY Interpretation No. 414 (1996) (Taiwan).

49 See JY Interpretation No. 445 (1998) (Taiwan).

50 New York Times v Sullivan 376 U.S. 254 (1964).

51 Ibid.

52 See JY Interpretation No. 509 (2000) (Taiwan).

53 Fa Jyh-pin, ‘Comments on Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 509’ (2000) 65 Taiwan Law Review 148, 152 [in Chinese].

54 This does not suggest that constitutional culture is the only, or even the most pivotal, factor that affects the attitude of the judiciary when confronting the political branches. In fact, institutional design may affect the interaction between coordinate branches as well. For example, Alec Stone Sweet maintains that, other things being equal, ‘concrete review is … less politically provocative’ than abstract review. See Alec Stone Sweet, Governing with Judges: Constitutional Politics in Europe (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000) 51. Nonetheless, the extent to which the variance of institutional design also affects how the judiciary interacts with the political branches is unclear, because other things are never equal. Indeed, even if institutional design affects the attitude of the judiciary, it does not exclude the possibility that constitutional culture functions in some manner as well.

55 Cohen-Eliya, Moshe and Porat, Iddo, Proportionality and Constitutional Culture (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2013) 47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Conceptually, a court can certainly invoke a foreign legal doctrine without being influenced by the constitutional culture of that foreign jurisdiction. Nonetheless, it is difficult to say for certain whether the TCC is influenced by German constitutional doctrines or by its constitutional culture in any single case because the TCC is affected by both in general. Also, the TCC’s choice of adopting a German legal doctrine itself may demonstrate the impact of German constitutional culture. In these decisions, the TCC did not mention any specific legal doctrine but emphasized the spirit of the Constitution. From this perspective, it seems plausible to suggest that the TCC is at least also influenced by German constitutional culture, in addition to its doctrines. Admittedly, the impact of German constitutional culture should not be overstated in this regard for two reasons. First, constitutional culture is dynamic and the TCC has become more assertive in recent years. Second, Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of the ROC, also emphasized coordination and cooperation among the five branches in his political theory, which is explicitly mentioned in JY Interpretation No. 3 (1952) (Taiwan).

57 Jau-Yuan Hwang, ‘Development of Standards of Review by the Constitutional Court from 1996 to 2011: Reception and Localization of the Proportionality Principle’ (2013) 42 National Taiwan University Law Journal 215, 239 [in Chinese].

58 Lai In-jaw, ‘Judicial Yuan Interpretations and Foreign Law’, in Daniel P Yu (eds), Evolving Concept of the Rule of Law and Development of the Cross-Strait Legal Systems During the Last Four Decades (Angle, Taipei, 2020) 196–97 [in Chinese]; David S Law and Wen-Chen Chang, ‘The Limits of Global Judicial Dialogue’ (2011) 86 Washington Law Review 523, 557–62, 575–77.

59 Hong-Cheng Chang, ‘The Sorcerers’ Apprentices: A Comparative Study on Law Clerks at the U.S. Supreme Court and Taiwan Constitutional Court’ (2016) 45 National Taiwan University Law Journal 501, 553, 579–83 [in Chinese]; see Law and Chang, (n 58) 553.

60 Slaughter, Anne-Marie, A New World Order (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2004) 96–103 Google Scholar.

61 See Law and Chang (n 58) 548–57.

62 See Association of Asian Constitutional Courts & Equivalent Institutions (AACC), available at <http://www.kehakiman.gov.my/en/about-us/international-judicial-relations/association-asian-constitutional-courts-equivalent>.

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66 Ibid 834.

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68 See Ginsburg (n 25) 115.

69 Ibid 257.

70 Ran Hirschl, Comparative Matters (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014) 22–23.

71 See Ginsburg (n 25) 139.

72 Bin Li, ‘China’s Socialist Rule of Law and Global Constitutionalism’ in Takao Suami et al (eds), Global Constitutionalism from European and East Asian Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2018) 58.

73 See Benedikt Goderis and Mila Versteeg, ‘Transnational Constitutionalism’ in Denis J Galligan and Mila Versteeg (eds), Social and Political Foundations of Constitutions (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015) 103, 108.

74 David Law, ‘Judicial Comparativism and Judicial Diplomacy’ (2015) 163 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 927, 976–86.

75 Obergefell v Hodges 576 U.S. 644 (2015).

76 See JY Interpretation No. 748 (2017) (Taiwan).

77 Minister of Home Affairs and Another v Fourie and Another (CCT 60/04) [2005] (South Africa).

78 Wen-Chen Chang, ‘An Isolated Nation with Global-minded Citizens: Bottom-up Transnational Constitutionalism in Taiwan’ (2009) 4(3) National Taiwan University Law Review 204, 212–20.

79 Wen-Chen Chang and Jiunn‐Rong Yeh, ‘Internationalization of Constitutional Law’ in Michel Rosenfeld and András Sajó (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012) 1166, 1174. It is worth noting that NGOs and citizens in Taiwan have endeavoured to ‘mediate the interfaces of both international human rights laws and domestic constitutional/legal rights protections’. See Chang (n 78) 212–20.

80 See Chang (n 78) 226.

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85 Groppi, Tania and Ponthoreau, Marie-Claire, ‘The Use of Foreign Precedents by Constitutional Judges: A Limited Practice, An Uncertain Future’ in Groppi, Tania and Ponthoreau, Marie-Claire (eds), The Use of Foreign Precedents by Constitutional Judges (Hart, Oxford, 2013) 418–19Google Scholar.