Taiwan Law in Focus: Economy, Society and Democracy

This is the first class of Taiwan Law in Focus. In this class, we will discuss the historical developments and structural transformations of Taiwan laws. Due to the limit of time, the goal is not to provide a throughout introduction of Taiwan’s legal history. Rather, the focuses are: (1) how the characteristics of current Taiwan law came into being through waves of legal transplants since the 17th century, (2) how the people living in Taiwan encountered and experienced these regime changes and legal reforms, and (3) how Taiwan gradually, sometimes in a roundabout way, evolved from into a liberal and democratic country over the past 100 years.

This is the second class of Taiwan Law in Focus. In this class, we will introduce the government structure in Taiwan and discuss how Taiwan completed its democratic transition. The other focus in this class is the constitutional court of Taiwan. Although Taiwan is not the only jurisdiction which has separate constitutional court, it enjoys some special features than others. Let's explore the interesting and profound process of democratic transformation in Taiwan.

Welcome to the third class of the course. This class will introduce you to basic knowledge and features of the Civil Law in Taiwan. Also, you will learn the difference between civil law, constitutional law and criminal law. Next, the course will provide you with what revision the Civil Code has experienced with the social change in Taiwan. You can learn what kinds of rights civil law provides in this lecture. And we will discuss a special issue in Taiwan -- the illegal buildings. In the end, this lecture will give you an introduction to the aging society in Taiwan and how it affects the family law and its practice.

This is the fourth class of Taiwan Law in Focus. In this class, we will discuss the development of human rights laws in Taiwan, focusing on constitutional laws and interpretations. Since the end of authoritarian era in the late 1980s, the guarantees of human rights in Taiwan have been substantially implemented and strengthened. Taiwan’s civil society and Constitutional Court have served crucial roles in this process. Their crucial roles as well as other contextual dynamics will be our primary discussions in the class.

Welcome to the fifth class of this course. This class I will introduce to you the criminal justice system in Taiwan. You will learn about the right to liberty and personal security, the right to judicial remedy, the right to silence, the right to counsel, and the right to a fair trial, under Taiwan’s Constitution. In addition, I will also give you an overview of Taiwan’s recent judicial reform of the death penalty and lay participation.

This class introduces the economic development pattern and characteristics of corporate governance in Taiwan. It starts with the characteristics of Taiwan’s economic and financial development and focuses on banking markets and capital markets. On that basis, it discusses the famous corporate objective debate and corporate power structure debate in corporate laws, analyzing how Taiwan’s corporate laws address these debates and the rationale behind such designs. It then uses two specific corporate law designs, i.e. independent directors and the Investor Protection Center, as examples to illustrate the special corporate governance environment in Taiwan. The class is concluded with a forward-looking remark, which envisages how the rise of institutional investors might affect the corporate governance landscape in Taiwan in the future.