重新檢視台灣司法獨立性－民眾支持與制度制衡的實證分析

Revisiting Taiwan's Judicial Independence: An Empirical Analysis of Public Support and Institutional Counterbalance

蒙志成(Chih-Cheng Meng) ； 盧彥竹(Yen-Chu Lu)

《臺灣民主季刊》 12卷4期 (2015/12) Pp. 141-188

摘要

「司法獨立」係當代憲政民主運作中相當重要的制度之一，它不僅是威權國家轉型民主的條件，更是所有民主體制得以維持穩定、並能有良好民主治理發展的重要機制。本文的研究目的，即在透過理論概念的梳理與實證資料的整理，具體建構台灣司法獨立程度的測量指標，並據以檢視台灣民主化以來，民眾對於司法機關的支持程度、以及台灣司法機關運作分權制衡之功能與實況演變。本研究透過文獻的整理，以「判決獨立」與「制度獨立」作為測量台灣司法獨立的兩項實證指標。其中判決獨立的測量，以民眾歷年對於司法機關的支持度調查為測量問項。制度獨立則以司法機關運作分權制衡之功能作為主要測量；為了完整測量司法機關制衡政治機關的功能，本文分從大法官宣告違憲之比例，以及行政法院撤銷違法行政處分之比例進行實證統計整理。本文在梳理並界定台灣司法獨立的概念與測量之後，則運用簡單的統計相關性分析，並依據所得統計資料，進行司法獨立與台灣憲政民主發展的剖析探討。分析結果顯示：1. 儘管整體來說，民眾對司法支持度與民主政治發展呈現低度相關，但這主要是因民眾對於司法獨立的期待與實際發展程度的差距所致，時至今日，兩者之間的正相關性愈形顯著。2. 司法機關運作分權制衡功能之兩項統計—特別是大法官宣告違憲比例，皆與民主程度有正相關，說明了司法機關的制衡功能，在當前台灣民主化的司法獨立發展中，扮演重要的關鍵性角色。

關鍵字

司法獨立 ； 憲政民主 ； 司法支持 ； 違憲審查 ； 行政處分

並列摘要

Judicial independence is one of the most important institutions in the operation of modern constitutional democracy. Not only is it a fundamental condition for an authoritarian regime to transit to a democracy, but also a crucial mechanism for a democracy to maintain regime stability and ensure good democratic governance. The purpose of this article is to construct a measurement of the degree of Taiwan's judicial independence by summarizing the theoretical concepts and analyzing the empirical data. By applying the measurement, this article investigates the extent of public support for the judicial department, as well as the functional operation and evolution of the judicial department during the era of democratization. According to the literature, ＂judgment independence＂ and ＂institutional independence＂ are two appropriate indicators to measure the extent of judicial independence in Taiwan. The indicator for judgment independence measures the degree to which people support or have trust in the judiciary department by using yearly opinion survey data. The indicator for institutional independence measures the judiciary department's ability to play checks and balances. Data for measuring institutional independence come from two official statistics-the ratio of laws and administrative decrees that the Justices of the Constitutional Court have declared unconstitutional, and the ratio of administrative acts that the Administrative Court have repealed. After defining and measuring judicial independence, we conduct simple correlation statistics to analyze the development of judicial independence and constitutional democracy in Taiwan. The empirical result demonstrates: 1. On the whole, public support of the judiciary and democratic development shows a low correlation, which is mainly because of the gap between the public's expectations of judicial independence and its actual development. However, the gap has diminished and statistical correlation has become positive after democratization. 2. The two indicators of institutional independence, in particular the ratio of laws and administrative decrees that the Justices of the Constitutional Court have declared unconstitutional, are positively correlated with the degree of democracy, indicating that the judiciary's checks and balances play a crucial role in the current development of judicial independence under Taiwan's democratization.

並列關鍵字

judicial independence ； constitutional democracy ； judicial support ； judicial review ； administrative act

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