A Study on the Basic Theoretical Norms for Promoting Transitional Justice in Taiwan

The implementation of the "Act on Promoting Transitional Justice" has initiated the need for the legalization of transitional justice theory. This project uses the values of liberal democratic constitutionalism revealed in the Act as a benchmark to analyze illegal acts and outcomes during the past period of authoritarian rule. To avoid remaining purely theoretical, this project examines a large number of historical political archives, analyzing them from two aspects: the government system and fundamental constitutional human rights. That is, it uses the principle of a substantive Rechsstaat (state governed by the rule of law), which emphasizes both "formal legality" and "substantive legality," to judge whether the government system and various governance measures during the authoritarian period violated the basic requirements of the liberal democratic constitutional order. By reviewing the past, it seeks to avoid repeating the same mistakes and move toward a better future.