Taking a deeper look at the judicial problems that face every nation, we see that public authority is not able to restrict improper behavior and provide comprehensive services. At a time when every level of society demands privacy yet want guarantees of public benefits, it is quite normal to see each level of government as duty-bound to a host contradictory missions including economic development and ecological preservation; genetic engineering and ethics; and the media and the transformation of society.
In trying to formulate responses to those contradictions, many local scholars are beholden to the deregulation ideas of the Reagan administration in the 1980s and put too much importance on whether or not, and how much, the government should intervene. However, they fail to ponder the qualitative changes in, and transformation of, public authority.
The German public law scholar Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, currently a judge on that country's Federal Constitutional Court, has proposed the concept of "from self-implementation to provision of guarantees," as a solution for governments shouldering too heavy a load. He has used a football match as a metaphor, explaining that the state has always had the attitude of the players on the field. In the future, it should take on more of a role of referee and physician to maintain the fairness and security of the match -- in other words, the innovation and mission of the legal system. Only then can a government concentrate the public authorities's resources on directing the building of the system, promoting the creation of regulations and providing measures to mobilize the balanced development of market and social assistance.
Since the lifting of martial law in Taiwan, the power of authority has crumbled while the endless intertwining of special privileges and public interests has engendered a hankering for the "powerful government" of yesteryear. If the intellectual elite ignore the public's good intentions in complaining to bureaucrats and remain infatuated with the idea of deregulation, then Taiwan's society will never rise out of the mud created by party polarization and conflicts of interest. It will never be able create an independent and mature environment.
Howard Shyr is an associate professor at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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