The 2022 Global Review of Constitutional Law: Taiwan

Abstract

2022 was a momentous year for Taiwan’s constitutional landscape. In contrast to 2021 being the year of transition, 2022 marked a significant constitutional moment for Taiwan in three aspects. First, the process of formal constitutional reform eventually progressed after a long hiatus of constitutional revision following the amendment of constitutional amendment procedures in 2005—only to see itself end in a failed referendum. If the development of formal constitutional reform suggested a long-awaited constitutional movement since 2005, the formal constitutional amendment’s failure to clear the threshold for ratification by referendum in November served as evidence to the year 2022 being a failed constitutional moment.

Even so, the year 2022 remained constitutionally momentous. As the inaugural year of the new Constitutional Court Procedure Act (CCPA), 2022 was the year in which the Taiwan Constitutional Court (TCC) entered a new era of constitutional review. It is also noteworthy that the year 2022 was a constitutional moment in the Schmittian sense: With Taiwan’s existential threat—China’s sovereignty claim over Taiwan—brought to the foreground by China’s military drills in the wake of Ms. Nancy Pelosi’s—the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives as of 2022—visit to Taiwan in August, Taiwan saw a tectonic shift on the nomos of its geopolitical situation as the meta-constitution, casting a long shadow over Taiwan’s constitutional politics with implications to the agenda of constitutional reform.

Keywords: Taiwan, Taiwan Constitutional Courts; Constitutional Amendment, Constitutional Court Procedure Act, Constitutional Law; Constitutional Politics; Comparative Law; Judicial Review; Judicial Politics