The court on the other hand, provide a framework of decision for the political actors to deal with. First, the court impose two procedural obligations to the executive and to the legislature respectively. For the executive, the court require the executive talk to the Congress over the policy, and a rationale of stopping constructing force nuclear power plant. You need to explain to the Congress. At the same time the court also impose obligation to listen to the Congress. You should also listen to what the executive have to say. This double procedure obligation was imposed to the major political actors for that. And then the court laid out four possible scenario. Once the executive talk to the Congress and the Congress is satisfied, then will be Scenario 1. Maybe the Congress is not happy, Scenario 2. Lay out all the possibilities. The Court is not going to make concrete decision for the force nuclear power plant. By doing so, the court is able to lack political actors, shoulder the case, and also deal with the case mutually. In the end, executive Yuan and the legislature may come up with agreement. The agreement being at that time, continue construction of force nuclear power plant, but at the same time, both party agree that Taiwan is going to be a nuclear free homeland in the future. Setting up the consensus for Article 23 of the basic law of the environment, that set up very clearly that government should come up with policies incrementally to push forward the goal of no nuclear free home name. This idea, politicians or political parties, or even political institutions, they may fight on something and couldn't come up with a solution in the benefit of the general public. The court was called upon to deal with that issue. The court simply cannot substitute their own agenda on the issue and the court was able to launch that kind of political dialogue. Push forward for that, constructed development. That's really good. I would argue that the court has been dialogic court in nature, has been continuing doing that. The other elements that presenting the court's dialogics is the imposition of the grace period of time for compliance. The court has been very used to this strategy. Even the court declare piece of legislation unconstitutional. The court setup a certain period of time for political sectors to comply. That has softened the tension about this public policy. Many jurisdictions may have confronted exactly the same thing, and if they come up with a black and white decision and a certain announcement may result in some disobedience or even some public unrest. Another we all have to do was a politically charged issue, like for example, racial segregation or discriminatory measures, once declared by the court as unconstitutional, maybe something need to be prepared in order to move smoothly. The court has been very successful in imposing the grace period. There's one strategy the court has used at some time, but not always. That is when the court is confronting divided society over divided issue. Whether the court, she'll stand as a single court, or whether justices are going to be divided. You have some possible scenarios While facing a divided society, the court itself divided. Like for example, in the United States, five to four or even divided can make any decision. Lots of people write in descending opinion, challenging the legitimacy of the court. So society has already divided and a court itself again is divided. So there is a judicial strategy that has been used worldwide of course. But I will say in a democratic transitional context, this kind of strategy is also very important to prevent society from further division. That is, the court talks to each other, justices they begin to talk to each other, come up with a solution, come up with a decision, the most of the justice would agree upon. Don't talk too much. Don't come out and say, I'm so brave, I'm so different. I want to say something different, writing descending opinion, concurring opinion in the very emotional way that will further irritate the society. The Chief Justice or some of the group of justices, may have an intention to talk to each other. Came up with a position that would reflect a single court. That may in some way not worsen that social privilege. I'm talking about this kind of scenario in the context of transition. When it comes to transition, there are transitional justice issues. There are problems with identity. There are problems that the society has had rooms in it and they need to heal. Judicial strategies such an important issues to deal with. Now Constitutional Court in Taiwan at one point also render one significant decision that is to declare a constitutional amendment unconstitutional. In a world, not too many Constitutional Court has ever done that kind of decision. Even in the United States, we can find anything like that. By in Taiwan, the Constitutional Court, over several decades of experience, had in one time declare constitutional amendment unconstitutional. That is the sixth constitutional revision by National Assembly. The constitutional court comes up with a theory. There are general order and structure of the Constitution that you can't change easily. You'll have to respect that very important core part of constitutional order. This is, once again, very sensitive. If you go to the extreme the court can come up and stop the Constitutional Amendment. The court is walking on the political tie rope. The court itself is originally a counter-majoritarian institution. That is court issue decisions, declare legislation promulgated and [inaudible] by the Congress as unconstitutional, is running against them a majority. But yet the court also stand up to rule against the constitutional amendment and this is very sensitive. It has something to do with public sovereignty. The court of course, need to be very careful about this one. But I would say that up to now, the court has been pretty cautious in doing that. There are two very important functions of the constitutional court that I would like to bring to your attention. In Korea, there were political party being dissolved and it was decided by the constitution court. Guess what? These two powers also embedded with our constitutional court. Through constitutional revisions, constitutional court in Taiwan also enjoy their power to presidential impeachment and also dissolve unconstitutional political parties. Luckily, the court has never done that because there has never been cases like that happening in front of the court. But once there are cases like this, once again, is going to be politically sensitive. As I understand, the party dissolve cases in Korea was very controversial. Then the court declared the one political party, should we dissolve because it violated constitutional principle? How about freedom of association? Particularly Taiwan has been under the process of democratization. The government used to forbid the formation of any political party in the past. These are possible politically sensitive and politically charged issue for the court. Lastly, I'm going to say something made me very happy. That is, our constitutional court has been able to put decisions online in an effective way. This is very good. Not only that. You also have the English version to that. What's the consequence of that tremendous significance going on right now? We are in a world of global judicial networking. That is, judges from different courts in different jurisdictions in different countries are actually referring to each others decision, and if we see Taiwan's judicial interpretation as meaningful and significant, practically and theoretically, it is very important to that others get access to. Now, when Taiwan come up with interpretation number 748, legalizing same-sex marriage is the first in Asia. Scholars, others from other parts of the world was able to get access to this decision online and get the English version. This is really a good practice and I congratulate our constitutional court on doing this and also, we believe that because of the consolidation of democracy and now also issues need to be addressed and I think there are issues staying ahead. That's the task of our judicial review and constitutional court.
