Now, let's talk about the law in Japanese colonial period, which is also the beginning of legal modernization in Taiwan. How Japan acquired Taiwan? It was actually a result of Japan's overwhelming military in Sino-Japanese War. As a result, Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki or I'm not going to tell you in Chinese with the Ching Chinese Empire and therefore acquired Taiwan in 1895. Japan-Ruled Taiwan was again a multi ethnical society. The first group is also the ruling group, was the Japanese, or we call it the Mainlander [FOREIGN]. However, this ruling group only consisted of 1-6 percent depends on which year of the entire population. The second group is the Han- Chinese or Han-Taiwanese. It was called Islander [FOREIGN] in Japanese were the majority in terms of number. The third group is the indigenous people, which were the minority. As you may notice in this table, the population of indigenous people shrink so much. It only consisted 2-3 percent of the entire population. What law was brought by the Japanese to Taiwan? Well, you might say, of course is Japanese law. But why does it mean by Japanese law? What Japanese laws were brought to Taiwan? In fact, the answer is more like in substance, is a Western modern law with some traditional Japanese character. Before Japan came to Taiwan, Japan itself began its legal modernization around the mid of 19th century in a so-called Meiji Restoration in order to establish a modern nation-state and abolish Western extra territoriality, which is a common practice in non-Western country. Several court such as the court of civil court, criminal court, and the constitutional law were model on the European core, especially the German court, French court and they drafted between 1868 and the 1912. After Japanese came to Taiwan, there was a long debate question about how much Japanese law should be applied to Taiwanese. There were actually two major periods in the 50-year Japanese law. In the first period, the special law was the principle. It's the first half of the Japanese rule. In this period, Japanese law was affected but only applied to Japanese. Taiwanese civil matter were decided in accordance with the so-called Taiwanese all custom and decided by the Japanese judges. In other words, the Japanese judges have to understand what the Taiwan all custom is and judge the cases accordingly. For the third group, which is indigenous people, instead of judges, the police took out a role and that decide cases. Also in this period, a lot of special law related to criminal law and administrative law were enacted in Taiwan, which could provide sometimes severer punishment than the law enacted in metropolitan Japan. In other words, it was a discriminated law. However, on the other hand, they were also Western-style law, such as criminal law and the administrative law took effect in Taiwan. In addition, modern infrastructure such as court, police, and land/ house registration were also introduced to Taiwan and set a solid foundation for the legal modernization in the coming years. The second period began in 1923. In this period, the metropolitan Japanese law was the principal. The reason for this change is to eliminate principle of self-determination of the colonized people after World War 1. Therefore, the Japanese government push for the policy of expansion of the homeland or assimilation of law. In this period, Japanese civil law, commercial, and the numerous administrative law were applicable to Taiwanese. As a result, Taiwanese experienced more modern western style law, because as we explained earlier, the content of Japanese law were actually a lot of tie Western law. However, around 1936 to seven, when Japan and Taiwan entered the so-called war time period and the authoritarian regime, the main concern of law became Japanization or [FOREIGN] and the war time mobilization. As a result, the Western law factor in the Japanese law were less respected. You may ask to what extent in the 50 years Japanese colonial time, Taiwanese experienced leader modernization? The answer might depend on which area of law or which period you were asking. In the case of constitutional law, the situation is found at the beginning of colonial time. Whaler Meiji Constitution was applicable to Taiwanese, was ambiguous and the controversial issue. Indeed, Taiwanese were discriminated. For example, Taiwanese did not have the political right to elect their representative of the national diet of Japan. However, on the other hand, Taiwanese did experience a certain degree of separation of power, judicial independence, and their fundamental right. For example, in 1920s and 30s where modern Taiwanese intellectual emerged, who are the people who receive modern education a lot of time in Tokyo. This people started to engage in political movement. They observe their fundamental rights and liberty provided by the Meiji constitution to ready assemblies and establish political association, even including an opposition party. In the case of family law is also interesting issue. Actually Taiwanese family law had been under the Taiwan or custom regime for the entire Japanese period. In other words, the newly elected Western style Japanese family law was not introduced to Taiwan at this in a name. Actually, some changes were brought by the colonial court. For example, wives were allowed to sue for divorce, which had been unprecedented in Chinese legal tradition. In conclusion, we can say modern Western law first entered Taiwan alongside the sword of Japanese rulers. In other words, modern law come, Western reinforces. This period was the first step of Taiwan tour a modern and the deeper country. More will become in the next and the last part of this classes focusing on the development after World War II.
