重審臺灣憲法法院的政治角色──以大法官釋字第261號為例

Reexamining the Role of the Constitutional Court in Taiwan’s Democratization—Evidence from the J.Y. Interpretation No. 261

本文透過分析大法官釋字第261號出現的政治背景，重新檢視臺灣憲法法院在民主化過程中扮演的角色。釋字第261號長期以來被許多法律學者視為是推動臺灣民主化最重要的釋憲案。在這個釋憲案中，大法官為第一屆多年未被改選的中央民代設下了確切的退職期限，促成了國會全面改選。法律學者大多對此釋憲案有很高的評價，認為大法官展現了民主化的機能。本文挑戰這樣的觀點。我們透過分析憲法法院作成釋字第261號時的政治脈絡，論證大法官在民主化過程並非扮演民主倡議者的角色，反之，他們的角色較接近於政治潮流的旁觀者。即使沒有261號解釋文，臺灣的民主化進程並沒有太大的影響。我們同時論證261號解釋文有下列三個政治功能：第一、為當時的執政者解決一個政治上的燙手山芋；第二、解決臺灣政治上的異常質；第三、合法化政治上的大趨勢。

Most Taiwan law scholars claimed that the Constitutional Court paved the way for Taiwan’s democratization and constitutional reforms. These legal studies consider the J.Y. Interpretation No. 261 as the most critical decision in Taiwan’s democratic transition as this decision provided the constitutional foundations for the retirement of the first-term national representatives and led to subsequent constitutional reforms. In this paper, we challenge this dominant view. We reexamine the political role of the Constitutional Court during the processes of Taiwanese democratization by citing J.Y. Interpretation No. 261 as a hard case. We argue that the Constitutional Court made little contribution to Taiwan’s democratization. This paper shows that the role of Taiwan’s Constitutional Court in the process of democratization has been far more complicated and far less promising than is commonly thought. We also argue that J.Y. Interpretation No. 261 provides at least three political functions for the dominant party: first, it solved a political dilemma for the political elites; second, it helped the political elites to remove the political outliners. Third, it legitimated the ruling party’s political agenda.