ABSTRACT
The legal development of Taiwan in the twentieth century reflects the complex legacy of "one land with two national flags." In Taiwan's case, various states and ethnic groups have all helped to shape its legal history in the twentieth century. The Taiwanese armed resistance against the Japanese military takeover forced the Japanese authorities to realize that there were political, cultural, and other differences between Japan and Taiwan. The actual implementation of the Constitution's bill of rights did not occur until the emergence of political liberalization and democratization in the late 1980s and through the 1990s. The Japanese Code of Criminal Procedure came into force in Taiwan at the end of the nineteenth century. Civil and commercial matters involving only Taiwanese were to be regulated by the "old Taiwanese custom" influenced by Chinese legal traditions. From the beginning of the Japanese period, the local government, in accordance with Chinese legal tradition, was allowed to mediate civil disputes.
