The 2019 Global Review of Constitutional Law: Taiwan

Abstract

Taiwan’s constitutional development in 2019 was reactive in character with the legislative arena as the main constitutional theater. In reaction to the constitutionally controversial and politically divisive referenda aimed at curtailing the Taiwan Constitutional Court’s (TCC) historic Same-Sex Marriage Case, the Government introduced legislation both to implement the TCC’s ruling on marriage equality and to amend the Referendum Act again to minimize the impact of referendum politics on elections in the future. To propaganda and other forms of interference imputed to China, which had been blamed for the DPP’s election defeat in 2018, the DPP government reacted with a series of legislative moves to tighten up national security measures to avoid repeating the same misfortune in the elections to come.

Paralleling the reactive moves on the legislative front were the seeming constitutional routines as manifested in the president’s judicial appointments in the anticipation of scheduled retirements from the TCC and the TCC’s decisions. Routine as they seem to be, both non-statutory constitutional developments, whether they played out in the judicial forum or not, were of long-term significance in Taiwan’s constitutional development in their own right.

Keywords: Taiwan Constitutional Court, Popular Constitutionalism, Referendum, Same-Sex Marriage, Constitutional Interpretation