About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

45 Hong Kong L.J. 315 (2015)
Marching towards Civic Constitutionalism with Sunflowers

handle is hein.journals/honkon45 and id is 317 raw text is: MARCHING TOWARDS CIVIC CONSTITUTIONALISM WITH SUNFLOWERS O1 Jiunn rong Yeh* In March 2014, Taiwanese students occupied Taiwan's Congress for several weeks over the legislature's fast-track approval of a service trade agreement with China. Recently, there were calls and actions to occupy the Central in Hong Kong over the controversial rules of choosing the Chief Executive of the spe- cial region. Some have hailed mass movement or civil disobedience, inter alia, as the triumph of civil society, while some lamented it as the death of mature democracies and a threat to the rule of law and liberal constitutionalism. This essay analyses the Sunflower Movement from the prospects of representative democracy and the changing landscape of constitutionalism, arguing that the Sunflower Movement has demonstrated a model of marching towards civic con- stitutionalism, in that civil groups compete with their representative agents and the courts in shaping and defining the constitutional order. 1. Introduction Constitutional change in Taiwan has occurred in tandem with a fascinating process of democratic transformation. Incremental and fragmented as it may seem, Taiwan's constitutional change since democratisation in the late 1980s could be summarised as a process of representation-reinforcing, as reflected in the seven rounds of constitutional revisions, in the more representative legislature, in the general and direct presidential elections and also in the larger participatory state apparatus.' This level of progress in building representative democracy, albeit miraculously successful, did not stop the civil society from increased engagement with the constitutional order. In fact, following democratic transition and constitutional reform, the civil society stayed vigilant and active with the realisation of full suffrage and better representation in the government, including for the legislature and also the President. More than two decades since the legislative overhaul in 1992, the Sunflower Movement consolidated an National Taiwan University Chair Professor, JSD: Yale, 1988. I Jiunn Rong Yeh, Democracy-Driven Transformation to Regulatory State: The Case of Taiwan (2008) 3 National Taiwan University Law Review 31-59.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most