The Modernization of Civil Justice in Colonial Taiwan, 1895–1945

Abstract

SUMMARY

This paper will focus on how and to what extent modern European law was received in Taiwanese civil law and practice during the period of Japanese colonial rule (1895– 1945). In 1895, the Japanese government, whose legal system had recently received modern European law, began its rule on Taiwan, where people were initially unfamiliar with modern law. Taiwanese old customs were adopted to be the governing law for Taiwanese civil and commercial matters during the former period of Japanese rule, but European- style Japanese civil and commercial laws (except those relating to family and succession) became applicable to Taiwanese civil matters during the latter period. From the beginning of colonial rule, a European-style court system and civil procedural law were in principle enforced in Taiwan. However, unlike that in metropolitan Japan, the law in the colony allowed the local administrative branch to mediate civil disputes and implement the resolutions that resulted from this mediation, which was quite similar to the traditional style of civil dispute resolution in East Asia. Accompanying the colonial legislation mentioned above, the Japanese authorities introduced modern jurisprudence to Taiwan as well. An outstanding Japanese jurist, Okamatsu Santarō, systematically interpreted Taiwanese old customs with European jurisprudence. Since the 1920s, especially after the establishment of the legal section in the Imperial Taihoku University in 1928, the jurisprudence in colonial Taiwan gradually lost its uniqueness within the Japanese Empire and followed the mainstream prewar Japanese legal community. In fact, the super-majority of jurists and legal professionals in colonial Taiwan were Japanese rather than Taiwanese. Under such a legal reform led by the Japanese colonialists, Taiwanese society to a large degree transplanted European property law and commercial law, but received to a limited extent European family and succession law. In sum, the modernization of civil justice in Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule was not managed by native people but had some achievements due to the pragmatism of Taiwanese.