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The Political Origins of Professional Identity: Lawyers, Judges, and Prosecutors in Taiwan’s State Transformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2018

Ching-fang HSU
Ching-fang HSU*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
*
Correspondence to Ching-fang Hsu, Department of Political Science, Sidney Smith Hall, Room 3018, 100 St George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. E-mail address: [email protected].
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Abstract

Where does the legal profession’s identity originate from? How do we explain the intra-professional variations, as multiple legal professions diverge in their political orientations? This paper argues that the legal profession critically develops their core identity resisting incumbent rule when the state undergoes fundamental power reconfiguration. It is their political position as opposed to power in a critical juncture of state transformation that determines the legal profession’s collective ideal of who they are and what actions they take. Drawing on 133 interviews with Taiwanese judges, lawyers, and prosecutors, extensive fieldwork, and archival data up to the 1990s, this paper demonstrates how democratization shapes professional identity. As respective professions experienced different levels and models of authoritarian containment, they took separate trajectories to challenge the Kuomintang’s party-state and pledge to different normative commitments. Taiwanese judges categorically defend judicial independence, lawyers advocate for people’s rights, and prosecutors marshal under justice to check abuse of power.

Keywords

legal professionjudicial politicsjudicial reformdemocratizationTaiwan
Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , November 2019 , pp. 321 - 346
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 2018

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Footnotes

*

Doctorate candidate in political science at the University of Toronto. The author thanks Ran Hirschl, Joseph Wong, the two reviewers at AJLS, as well as the faculty workshop participants at the Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, for their comments and support. The author also thanks the anonymous interviewees in Taiwan, whose actions and insights made the actual contribution to the understanding of the legal profession of our island and beyond.

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