大法官解釋與社會正義之實踐

Interpretations of the Justices and Implementation of Social Justice

本文旨在探討職司憲法解釋的司法院大法官，在社會正義的制度實踐所扮演的角色。一般認為大法官在此脈絡扮演的角色無足輕重，主要理由是，社會正義之實踐某種程度上為社會資源的重分配，則職責當然是落在有民意基礎的政治部門，大法官基於權力分立與尊重民意之考量，自然多傾向尊重、順從政治部門之政策決定。本文除一開始指出此一看法的謬誤，並試圖盤整大法官解嚴以來的相關解釋，依循憲法所指示應該推行的相關事務領域（例如全民健保、勞工、農民、原住民、身障者之保護與老年生活保障等），逐項分析其於社會正義之實踐的功過，繼而作量化分析，除發現大法官作成之相關解釋，整體而言還算偏向合乎社會正義外，並發現大法官於系爭法律規定不利弱勢時，並未因涉及社會財經領域而採取消極態度，反而提升審查密度，顯見大法官並不認為社會正義之實踐在國家權力分配上主要為歸屬政治部門之任務。此一量化觀察可謂翻轉了向來以為大法官在財經社會領域普遍採寬鬆審查的直覺認知。

This article aims at clarifying the role of the Justices with regard to the institutional implementation of social justice. Due to the fact that implementation of social justice to a large extent relies on redistribution of social resources and therefore basically falls within the competence of the political branches who posess the direct democratic legitimation, it is said that Justices should show deference to the decision-making of the political branches. This article points out the fallacy of this viewpoint and tries to prove the important influence of the Justices regarding the implementation of social justice. This article is devided into two parts. The first part is qualitative analysis of the relevant Interpretations of the Justices, and aims at reviewing the contributions and defeciencies of the Justices regarding the implementation of social justice. The second part is mainly quantitative analysis. In this part this article finds that the relevant Interpretations of Justices, as a whole, basically conform to the demand of social justice. Additionally this article also finds that Justices incline to take an attitude of judicial activism especially in the cases the reviewed legislative acts are not in favor of the disadvantaged groups, which subverts the traditional intuitive knowledge of Justices’ passive role regarding the implementation of social justice.