The Role of Transitional Justice in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Jaw-Nian Huang, 黃兆年
• Other Authors: 蕭全政
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/98374771014055964647

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 政治學研究所 === 97 === “Transitional justice” refers to how a country which just transformed from an authoritarian or totalitarian regime to democracy deals with the violation of human rights in the past. Since the Second World War, the universalization of transitional justice in the end of the 20th century has been the historical product along with the third wave of democratization and the post-Cold War globalization. The values of transitional justice are human rights; however, the role of transitional justice is not merely to pursue the universal goals to protect human rights and consolidate democracy, but also to follow the logic of rationalization of a specific country’s political economy in order to resolve its problems about survival and development. The above-mentioned arguments can be demonstrated in studying some of the third wave of democratization countries’ experiences, including Spain, Argentina, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and South Africa. One of the most serious challenges during Taiwan’s democratization processes is that the Taiwan’s subjectivity and wholeness were strongly softened by the external-induced authoritarian transformation, which also increased the difficulties in putting transitional justice into practice. Hence, the most rational direction of Taiwan’s authoritarian transformation is to establish “the national political economic regime” which has capacities to ensure Taiwan’s subjectivity and wholeness. Therefore, the role of transitional justice in Taiwan is to foster community’s common values and help make the national political economic regime be established to function. It is necessary for Taiwan to invest social capital and enhance social trust in the transitional justice processes; besides, there might be some positive effects if bringing deliberative democracy into the transitional justice processes.