Family Law in Taiwan: Historical Legacies and Current Issues
- Yun-Ru Chen & Sieh-Chuen Huang (Download)
This article provides a bird’s-eye view of Taiwan family law by highlighting its major historical transformations, special characteristics and current issues. It begins with a historical outline of the successive legal regimes which brought in multiple sources of Taiwan family law, namely the traditional Chinese legal system, the colonial Japanese law and the post-war KMT law. It then examines the transformations of laws on marriage, divorce, parent-children relationship, as well as significant issues, such as same-sex marriage, cross-border marriage, elderly support, and adult guardianship. Overall, the development of Taiwan family law could be seen as local development in the global context. This article offers a tentative analysis of the features which could be understood as the manifestations of global trends as well as their adaption or metamorphosis in specific cultural and local settings. In addition to legal developments, this article also highlights recent scholarly trends in the area of Taiwanese family law in order to provide a starting point for further research.
Disaster Laws and Management Authorities in Taiwan (1945-2019)
- Yung-Hua Kuo (Download)
Disaster is a continuous process in that its mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery all influence one another, and even the risk as well as the severity of the next disaster. To fully realize disaster management and its issues in Taiwan, this paper examines disaster laws and management authorities throughout the ROC rule beginning in 1945. According to this research, the history of disaster management in Taiwan can be divided into two periods. From 1945 to 1999, disaster effects were primarily handled by the executive power through local administrative regulations and presidential emergency decrees. These measures focused on response to an imminent disaster and recovery from damage already sustained, but they overlooked the important task of averting disasters. Since 2000 to the present, the legislature has actively passed and amended statutes to establish a national legal framework of disaster management and to address specific issues caused by major disasters. However, even after making legal reforms, fragmented authorities remain a problem for successful disaster management in Taiwan. This paper suggests that Taiwan needs an agency with sufficient power and resources to make long-term plans and coordinate intragovernmental efforts when facing disasters. In addition, it is important to increase the capacity of local governments to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. By incorporating local knowledge and diverse opinions of the affected people, Taiwan may better reduce disaster risks and adapt to impacts according to specific social, cultural, and environmental contexts.
The History of Administrative Law in Taiwan under the Japanese Rule Era (1895-1945): A Neglected Yet Valuable Piece of Legal History for Research
- Chien-Liang Lee (Download)
The social and historical context should not be ignored in administrative legal studies because the gestation, generation, evolution, and transformation of the connotations of administrative laws are inevitably deeply influenced by the surrounding politics, economics, society, and culture. This is why research on the development and evolution of administration law plays a crucial role in administrative legal studies.
A review of Taiwanese administrative law textbooks shows that administrative legal history related articles are mainly focused on the development of administrative law in Continental European countries (especially Germany). Taiwanese administrative laws’ development is rarely addressed. If it was addressed, the article usually starts with the establishment of the Republic of China, ignoring the administrative law developments under the Japanese Rule Era in Taiwan. However, since the connotations of administrative laws are deeply influenced by the surrounding politics, economics, society, and culture, exploring Taiwanese administrative law during the period of Japanese rule is crucial in understanding the development of Taiwanese administrative law.
Taking the legal history view of “focusing on the law of the land”, this paper selects all the administrative laws that were previously implemented in Taiwan as research subjects. This paper will first provide an overview of the constitutional system under Japanese Rule Era in Taiwan. Next, it will explain and analyze the development and characteristics of administrative laws under Japanese Rule Era. Finally, this paper will provide a comprehensive observation of the development of modern Taiwanese administrative law while trying to draw historical lessons from the implementation situations of these laws, identifying the normative principles that are in line with the life experiences and legal emotions of Taiwanese people. Thispaper is expected to benefit the establishment of Taiwanese administrative legal history.