Description

A stark contrast stands out between the two models of judicial policy process in Taiwan and Singapore. In Taiwan, lawyers are active reform advocates, pressuring both the government and the judiciary to advance for better accountability and transparency. By contrast, the government and judiciary in Singapore are on the active end, pushing for and responding to changes in the legal sector at home and abroad, while the lawyers make corresponding adjustment to policies. How do we explain the difference between these two policy models? This presentation aims to offer two hypotheses and preliminary evidence. First, a structural perspective focuses on the difference of political logic. That is, decision-making process and stakeholders involved determine the political dynamics of policy-making, which, as a consequence, also result in the performance of reform policy. Second, an agentic explanation argues that the divergent professional identity leads to the different outcome of policy-making in the respective jurisdiction. Lawyers and judges in Taiwan are socialized and exposed to divergent ideational perception of the judiciary, while the legal profession in Singapore shares pragmatic goals and similar expectation of the role of the judicial system. The two hypotheses both offer partial explanatory power, and the author welcomes feedback to help the author in reaching a final conclusion.

About The Speaker

Ching-Fang is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Toronto. She received her LL.B from National Taiwan University, LL.M from UC Berkeley, and M.A. from the University of Chicago. Trained as a lawyer and social scientist, she works in the interdisciplinary area between political science and law, focusing on the political role of judicial institutions and legal actors in various power settings. Her research interests include democratization, rule of law, institutionalism, judicial politics, and the legal profession. In the 2016-17 academic year, she is conducting field research on the internal politics between legal professions in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Chinese Law in The University of Hong Kong in March and April, 2017 and is a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS), NUS Law from April to June, 2017.