A New Way Out for Women Lawyers: An Empirical Study in Taiwan 

Jing-Huey Shao  (download) 

Gender attrition in careers is a phenomenon across continents. Whether gender-friendly benchmarks can reflect the degree of gender equality in the legal profession is still a question that has not been adequately explored. Taiwan is an ideal jurisdiction in which to explore whether and how gender plays a role in the legal profession. Taiwan’s legal profession has a relatively balanced gender composition, similar to that of Western countries, but is a late-comer on the other side of the globe.
This study is the first comprehensive survey of lawyers in Taiwan regarding their scope of practice and background. The results of the survey, along with in-depth interviews, are intended to provide an analysis of the Taiwanese legal profession, particularly under the lens of gender, including the progress and challenges for women lawyers, as well as their opportunities and strategies. The results show that even though Taiwan has weaker stereotypes for lawyers, which makes women less disadvantaged compared to those in Western countries having a long-standing history of the legal profession, the gender roles embedded in social and family contexts have restrained their career advancement opportunities. Nonetheless, the results of this study indicate that most Taiwanese women have minimized such restraints through mitigating stereotypes and “practice migration” among fields or types of practice.
Such findings may not only provide explanations for Taiwan’s situation in this regard, but they may also offer insights for other similarly situated jurisdictions with a relatively newly developed legal profession.

Czech Constitutional Court’s Interventions in Family Law Matters: Protection of Traditional Family 

Barbora Platzerova (download)

In the last fifteen years the Czech Constitutional Court has developed complex case-law dealing with some aspects of the family relations; it adopted a very formalist and conservative approach towards what is considered family and which relationships
should be protected as such, being very protective of the institution of legal (strictly heterosexual) marriage and establishing the standard of traditional family as a life arrangement privileged over relationships not established by a blood bond or legal
marriage. Targeting same sex couples, unmarried heterosexual couples, and also children, if their family relations were not established by a blood bond or its acceptable imitation, the court promotes traditional family as the only allowed form of
family suitable for the protection established by the ECHR as family life. Gradually shifting from and later largely rejecting the ECtHR’s authority in family law matters, the court tolerates other family arrangements only as private life, without the privilege
granted to family, disregarding the protection from discrimination and the welfare of children established by the Czech legislation and binding international law. The court also established the “protection of traditional family” as a construction aid which
needs to be consulted in family law matters, overcoming the protection of the interests of the child or the suitability or necessity in a democratic society.

Seizure and obtaining possession of the collateral play an important role in extrajudicial realization. However, it poses a risk to a host of interests: public order, interests of creditors and debtors. As such, there should be ways to equilibrate interests. Laws of countries may have their position in striking this balance. This paper shows that despite some progressions, the Vietnamese legal regime regarding obtaining possession of the collateral is frustrating in this task due to many inconsistencies and vagueness. This paper argues the need for harmonization as well as proposes some specific suggestions.