ABSTRACT
Since 1949, the Judicial Yuan, the Republic of China’s judicial governance body in Taiwan, and the Supreme Court (SC), the terminus for all civil and criminal cases, have faced several challenges regarding the SC: a lack of consistency in legal opinions, an ossified precedent system, a controversial case allocation system, an overwhelming caseload, and the court’s preference for remanding cases to lower courts rather than making final decisions. Although several judicial reforms have addressed these challenges, cultural factors, including ideologies, ingrained practices, and alternative reform plans, have hindered reform. In Bourdieu’s words, the habitus of the judiciary largely determines the appearance of the Taiwanese appeal system.
