arise, as the court usually references international human rights law. These deficits,
however, may be ameliorated by legislative incorporation of international human
rights treaties into the domestic legal system, thereby providing democratic legit-
imacy as well as affirming the rule of law. In Taiwan, the Act to Implement the
ICCPR and the ICESCR stands as such an important effort.
Prospects for the next decade: three threads
Unequivocally, conventional understandings of constitutionalism have been insuf-
ficient to meet the dynamics of emerging democracies. Challenges need to be
faced, as the case of Taiwan demonstrates, in identifying both transitional and
transnational constitutionalism. The endeavor to find proper solutions to those
challenges, and how well constitutional scholars may render them, are the most
pressing issues for the second decade of the twenty-first century. We have proposed
that, with domestic and transnational institutional checks and balances, the prob-
lems of accountability, democratic deficit, and the rule of law posed by both
transitional and transnational constitutionalism may be overcome.
73
As prophecies
and solutions for developments in the next decade, we trace the paths of, and
identify, three parallel threads: the rise of the judiciary, the role of the president,
and the importance of civic engagement.
First, the rise of the judiciary as an effective arbiter and decision-maker may
continue. In the transitional context, polarized politics entail the judiciary, especially
the Constitutional Court, defusing tensions by wielding its power of adjudication.
As the past decade has revealed, the need for courts to resolve controversial disputes
during political turmoil has all along been manifest. Besides, in the transnational
context, courts may serve as mediators in linking Taiwan to the global community,
especially in the application of international human rights law. Despite the fact that
the judiciary is often criticized as the least likely decision-maker to be held account-
able, the experiences of the last decade in Taiwan showed the indispensable role of
courts. While recognizing the court as the vehicle to guide constitutional develop-
ment, problems cannot be ignored. Politicization of the judiciary and judicialization
of politics may continue to shape the next decade. To meet this challenge, some
amount of judicial self-restraint and strategic decision-making may be necessary.^74
The president is another actor that equally takes the helm of the future.
The political dynamics after the first regime change in the year 2000 vividly showed
the extreme scenario of how the president, under a winner-takes-all presidential
system with obscured divisions of power provided by the Constitution, further
exacerbated by a divided government, was engulfed in political turmoil.
(^73) Yeh and Chang, “Transnational constitutionalism,” 115.
(^74) This is especially prominent in East Asian experiences; see Chang, “Strategic judicial
responses,” 885.