Taiwan is known for it's quiet revolution. Then behind a quiet revolution is a constitutional change. The political liberalization and change actually is in tandem with the constitutional codification. On the one hand, you see the trajectory of change in the context of democratization. But at the same time you see a peaceful and also incremental constitutional transition. Let's begin with a constitutional crisis that the national government faced when they relocate from China to Taiwan. From China to Taiwan, the Nationalist Government brought with them, two matters. Number 1 is the Constitution. They brought with them constitution promulgated in 1946 Nanjing. On the other hand, they also bring together with them representatives, hundreds of representatives, came with them. With these two constitution and the representatives they continue to claim legitimacy over the whole China. Why at the same time doing something that is not in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution. Constitution now become cosmetic matters in only they are for worship to continue their “fatung” or their legitimacy. So what we say about constitutional crisis is simply passage of time. Imagine the representative there were elected in China, one-year, two-year, three-year past. According to the Constitution, their term is three years. Would there be a re-election? When there is a re-election, who is going to vote? Can people in China still vote for them while they are in Taiwan and whole government is based in Taiwan. They continue to ignore that again and again. In the end or course they need something to legitimize that practice. They once again put the case to the council of grand justices. The council has to legitimize the aging legislature, and the Control Yuan and National Assembly members. They say, this is an extraordinary time. We simply can't hold the national election. Until the next national election is possible, you guys simply continue to exercise the authority. That means there will be no re-election, as long as we can go back to China and you are still alive. What constitutional statutory under low map, we find lots of surprises like what I just said. The Congress, the National Assembly, the control members. They are not subject to re-election until student protest in front the Chiang Kai-shek monument until the Constitutional Court render a decision asking all the national representative to step down by the end of 1991, paving the road for congressional reform. There was the beginning of a series of a constitutional change. I would like to say the process of constitutional change through revision in Taiwan has its own, seven feature. Number 1, it's comprehensive or course in the end, but it's incremental. Is one round after the other. It's just like you bind a sausage. One sector of a salvage. How many of them already? Seven, 1991, 1992 , 94, 97, 99, 2000, 2005. Already five rounds of constitutional revision. What you will observe the constitutional change pattern in the what we call throw-away democratization country. We found primarily, there are four types. One type is a new constitution. That is, with the beginning of the democratization, they come up with a new constitution. Disregard all the Constitution. Number 2, that is taken by, for example, South Korea. That is, they come up with a comprehensive revision. Korea in 1987 revise the Constitution comprehensively, and since after. They don't need to revise that anymore. It's a one time comprehensive revision. While keeping the old constitution, and revise it based on comprehensive one. Taiwan, Indonesia, maybe Hungary, these are the same, through incremental process, one after the other. And then there is a fourth type, that is incremental in one way, but at some point they begin to come up with a new constitution. Poland and South Africa. They begin with some mini constitution, or temporary constitution, and then come up with a new constitution. Taiwan's constitutional reform has taken this rather unique root that is incremental. What can we say about this wrongs of constitutional reform? I would say representation reinforcing. What do we mean by represented reinforcing? That is, people should send their representatives to the parliament, or elect their president. In the very beginning, Taiwanese people, they never got a chance to elect their president. They never got a chance to form their sworn in parliament, not to mention other electoral positions. Gradually the first constitutional reform that is in 1991, set up the stage for election for the 1992 parliamentary election. Then you have 92 constitutional revision, and up to 1994, they've decided our president is not going to be elected by National Assembly members. People are going to directly elect their president, since after Taiwan's political landscape changed dramatically, resulting in the first 1996 direct presidential election up to now. Now we have so many presidential election, people are used to that routine, presidential election. Also three regime changes before that happen in year 2000, 2008, and the latest one is 2016. You have that major party in alternation regime change back and forth, testing the credibility of the constitutional order. That was because of a series of constitutional reform. In year 1997, there are two major revisions, which is also very important. Number one, at a time the National Assembly put up across deleting the approval power of the Congress over the appointment of the premier. That means, since after the President could nominate any premier of his or her desire, without any approval of the congress, and then mark the beginning of what we call the premier become the CEO. The CEO of the cabinet. That is the premier actually solved at a pressure of the president, changing the government structure from more like cabinet system to a presidential system. That 1997 constitutional revision, actually it has been very significant in the evolution of Taiwan's government structure. There is also the other matter. There has something to do with local-central relations. This is a section that we will talk about later on. But now let's talk about what's going on in that 1997 constitutional revision about local central relations. In that constitutional revision, they abolish that one, they are of the government. That is provincial government. Taiwan used to have what we call Taiwan provincial government. Even the governor is subject to the right election. But can you imagine the constituency of the Taiwan province and the whole Taiwan is almost the same, they're all bad luck substantially. Only besides Taipei and Kaohsiung City. Aside from Taipei City and Kaohsiung City, the constituency of the Taiwan governor, and the president overlap. It has a lot to do with the functioning of the government and also the integrity of the national government. So while worry about the Yeltsin effect, that is the Taiwan provincial government so powerful and also represent wide range of the territory here, which simplify the government structure. 1997 constitutional revision also simplify Taiwan's government structure. Particularly the constitution was designed for the big China and now is in Taiwan. After that change, now we have central government and primarily magistrate and also six mega cities. This is what we call two layers of the government. Make it simple. Now was some happening in 1999 and 2000. Resulting in one of the most profound constitutional interpretation in the World. That is, our constitutional court at one time, declare they had a constitutional amendment unconstitutional. This is a very big rare judicial practice, but the backdrop of that is in 1999 before the presidential election. The National Assembly gather and come up with revision to the Constitution. At some point. They extend, their terms somehow. That has antagonize the whole society. Particularly it was before the presidential election. Political parties, presidential tickets for election. They all condemn National Assembly. But also before that, the general perception about National Assembly is that they carry a secret and they come up with constitutional revision without direct participation from the citizen. What we call [山中傳奇]. There's something happened there, which we don't know. There was the backdrop for that constitutional interpretation. When the Constitutional Court declare that Constitutional Amendment unconstitutional. The National Assembly had to do that again. There was the six constitutional revision happening far out and coming up with some general solution, or we call mission oriented National Assembly, paving a road for the total abolishment of National Assembly in the future. The last constitutional revision happen in year 2005. This is the last major constitutional revision. There are several critical components of the revision. The first one is to cut the number of the Legislature into half. Because people want to penalize, want to sanction the Congress. Congress has not been doing well. They hope that Congress should downsized. That is a one way the general public hope to sanction the ineffective Congress. Number 2, they changed the electron rule from multiple district to single district with two ballot. Two ballot meaning one vote both for the candidates in a region. Now, second barrier cost for parties. Also they divert a certain seats, to that proportional representation among the 113 seats was assign for proportional representation. Political party you come up with a list of candidates and seeking for the approval and support from the general public. Any political party who gain, more than five percent of the total vote is liable to get a sign that proportional representation seats. So the landscape and also the function of the Congress has been changed dramatically because of the single district. So the candidates are not going to go extreme because they always have a one-to-one competition. They need to get the majority in order to get elected. They are not going to be too extreme whereas in the past in a multiple districts, some candidate become very extreme. They are to the extreme position, but nevertheless, they still got elected. Because they only need that 30 or 40,000 votes and they can get elected. This has changed the function of the Congress dramatically, but the most of profound change in the 2005 constitutional revision is to abolish the National Assembly and also establish a public referendum for any constitutional revision. That was the constitutional revision changing the process of future constitutional revision. The current system is you need to have a super-majority vote from a Congress. Any constitutional proposals sent to the Congress needs to get three-fourth that's 75 percent of the votes from a Congress, it takes super majority. That require bipartisan consensus, so it's not easy, but there is a second part. The second part is after the resolution from the Parliament, the proposal will be post for notice for six months. After six month there will be a public referendum of all the legitimate voters, half of them should say yes. And this threshold is so high there you can see, if the turn now is 70 percent. Seventy percent of them say yes, 70,70, 49 percent is almost the reached 50 percent. It's not easy. Can you imagine for constitutional referendum, the turnout is more than 30 percent? Well, that means the constitutional revision is not easy anymore. After that very frequent, elite settlement constitutional revision in the National Assembly. Now, we have entered into a new stage, but since 2005 up to now, there has never been any successful constitutional revision so far. The consequence of that is that when we need to do constitutional change, you either revise the constitution or there is another way, and that way is through constitutional interpretation by the Court. Guess what? If Constitutional revision, this road is closed or closed substantially or become more difficult than constitutional interpretation need to be strengthened. That's why there are more and more cases waiting for constitutional resolution, including the latest one, there is a same-sex marriage. So in constitutional interpretation, 748 in order of constitutional Court come up with their interpretation and that have constitutional significance. All in all these six rounds of Constitutional revision has met Taiwan Transform from authoritarian state to a full democracy. That doesn't mean the role is smooth or the job is easy. That doesn't mean any political leader or any political party or institution can claim all the credit from that. As a matter of fact, the Court, the Congress, and the President, the bureaucrat, the local governments, and primary, the civil society, actually has been working very hard sometime even bloodshed. Lots of them went to jail because of that. They challenge for reform, and in the end, through a painstaking process, we were able to move from there up to here. But of course, still jobs and challenges ahead and we still need to move on. Capacity building constitutionally is so critical.
