{
  "schema_version": "1.0",
  "id": "taiwan",
  "name": "Taiwan (Republic of China / 中華民國)",
  "jurisdiction_code": "TW",
  "legal_system": "civil-law",
  "language": ["zh"],
  "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "generated": "2026-06-04",
  "summary": "Taiwan is an East Asian civil-law constitutional democracy whose family-law framework operates under the Civil Code of the Republic of China Book IV (Family) arts. 1051-1140 governing marriage, parental rights and child custody. The friendly-parent doctrine (善意父母原則) was statutorily codified in art. 1055-1 in the 2013 amendment — among the earliest statutory friendly-parent provisions globally, placing Taiwan in a structurally distinctive position within the corpus. The Supreme Court (最高法院) is the apex court for civil and criminal matters; the Constitutional Court (憲法法庭, formerly Council of Grand Justices) operates constitutional review. The Family Act 2012 (家事事件法) established specialised Family Courts (家事法庭) with integrated psychological assessment and mediation. Psychology profession is regulated under the Psychologists Act 2001 with the Ministry of Health and Welfare Counselling/Clinical Psychologist licensing framework. Taiwan applies the child's-best-interests standard codified in Civil Code art. 1055. Taiwan is not a Hague Convention 1980 party due to its non-UN status; bilateral arrangements operate in lieu.",
  "pa_recognition_status": {
    "statutory": "silent",
    "apex_court_position": "no-apex-position",
    "professional_regulator_position": "silent"
  },
  "statutory_framework": [
    {
      "citation": "Civil Code of the ROC Book IV arts. 1055, 1055-1, 1059",
      "title": "Civil Code — Parental rights and custody",
      "year": 1930,
      "url": "https://law.moj.gov.tw/",
      "relevance": "Federal civil code Book IV on Family. Art. 1055 governs custody on divorce; art. 1055-1 codifies the friendly-parent doctrine (2013 amendment) — among the earliest statutory friendly-parent provisions globally."
    },
    {
      "citation": "Family Act 2012 (家事事件法)",
      "title": "Family Act — Family Court procedure",
      "year": 2012,
      "url": "https://law.moj.gov.tw/",
      "relevance": "Federal procedural statute establishing specialised Family Courts and Family-Tribunal procedure with integrated psychological assessment and mediation."
    },
    {
      "citation": "Psychologists Act 2001",
      "title": "Psychologists Act",
      "year": 2001,
      "url": "https://law.moj.gov.tw/",
      "relevance": "Federal statute regulating psychology profession with Counselling Psychologist and Clinical Psychologist licensing categories under Ministry of Health and Welfare."
    }
  ],
  "apex_courts": [
    {
      "name": "Supreme Court of the ROC (最高法院)",
      "seat": "Taipei",
      "url": "https://tps.judicial.gov.tw/",
      "role": "Apex court for civil and criminal matters."
    },
    {
      "name": "Constitutional Court (憲法法庭)",
      "seat": "Taipei",
      "url": "https://cons.judicial.gov.tw/",
      "role": "Constitutional Court with original jurisdiction over constitutional review (restructured 2022 from Council of Grand Justices)."
    }
  ],
  "professional_regulators": [
    {
      "name": "Ministry of Health and Welfare — Psychologist Licensing",
      "url": "https://www.mohw.gov.tw/",
      "role": "Federal regulator administering Psychologists Act 2001 with Counselling and Clinical Psychologist registration."
    },
    {
      "name": "Taiwanese Psychological Association",
      "url": "https://www.tpa-tw.org/",
      "role": "Peak professional association for psychologists in Taiwan."
    }
  ],
  "anonymisation_convention": "Taiwanese family-court decisions are anonymised per Judicial Yuan practice; published decisions use surname + first character only or full anonymisation.",
  "key_developments": [
    {
      "year": 1930,
      "title": "Civil Code Book IV (Family) enacted",
      "description": "Republic of China Civil Code Book IV on Family promulgated 26 December 1930, effective 5 May 1931 — German-Japanese civil-law tradition with continental-style codified family-law provisions on marriage, parental rights, adoption, guardianship, and inheritance."
    },
    {
      "year": 1985,
      "title": "Civil Code Family Revision — gender-equality first wave",
      "description": "First major post-war Family revision of Civil Code Book IV enacted 3 June 1985 introducing gender-equality reforms in marital-property and parental-authority provisions while retaining father-priority custody presumption — preparing the ground for the 1996 substantive reform."
    },
    {
      "year": 1996,
      "title": "Civil Code Family Revision — father-priority replaced with best-interest-of-the-child",
      "description": "Major Civil Code Family revision enacted 25 September 1996 replacing the father-priority custody presumption with the best-interest-of-the-child standard in art. 1055 — the foundational substantive reform anchoring Taiwan's contemporary best-interest jurisprudence and enabling the later 2013 friendly-parent codification."
    },
    {
      "year": 2001,
      "title": "Psychologists Act (心理師法)",
      "description": "Federal Psychologists Act enacted 9 November 2001 establishing the Counselling Psychologist and Clinical Psychologist licensing framework under the Ministry of Health and Welfare — federal-statutory psychology regulation with disciplinary authority."
    },
    {
      "year": 2003,
      "title": "Family Education Act (家庭教育法)",
      "description": "Federal Family Education Act enacted 2003 mandating family-education resources, parent-education programs, and family-counselling services — providing the educational-administrative infrastructure parallel to the Family Court system."
    },
    {
      "year": 2012,
      "title": "Family Act (家事事件法) establishing Family Courts",
      "description": "Federal procedural statute enacted 11 January 2012, effective 1 June 2012, establishing specialised Family Courts (家事法庭) with integrated psychological assessment, family-investigation officers (家事調查官), and court-attached mediation — bringing Taiwan into the East Asian specialised-Family-Court cluster alongside Japan and Korea."
    },
    {
      "year": 2013,
      "title": "Civil Code art. 1055-1 friendly-parent codification",
      "description": "Friendly-parent doctrine (善意父母原則) codified in Civil Code art. 1055-1 by amendment 8 May 2013 — among the earliest statutory friendly-parent provisions globally, providing courts an explicit doctrinal basis to consider each parent's willingness to facilitate the child's relationship with the other parent within the best-interest-of-the-child analysis."
    },
    {
      "year": 2019,
      "title": "Family Violence Prevention Act revision",
      "description": "Domestic Violence Prevention Act (家庭暴力防治法, originally 1998) substantively revised 2019 expanding protection-order scope, strengthening child-protection mechanisms, and explicit recognition of psychological violence within the family unit — operating parallel to the Family Court custody framework."
    },
    {
      "year": 2019,
      "title": "Act for Implementation of J.Y. Interpretation No. 748 — first Asian same-sex marriage legalization framework",
      "description": "Act for Implementation of J.Y. Interpretation No. 748 (司法院釋字第七四八號解釋施行法) enacted 22 May 2019 + effective 24 May 2019 — substantively distinctive globally first Asian state to legalize same-sex marriage framework. Substantive same-sex marriage framework following J.Y. Interpretation No. 748 24 May 2017 declaring Civil Code marriage provisions unconstitutional for restricting same-sex marriage + foundation for subsequent same-sex parental rights + adoption framework + 2023 J.Y. Interpretation No. 748 Implementation Act amendments allowing same-sex couples joint adoption framework. Foundation for Taiwan PA-jurisprudence in same-sex-parent custody disputes."
    },
    {
      "year": 2022,
      "title": "Constitutional Court restructure (憲法法庭)",
      "description": "Council of Grand Justices restructured as Constitutional Court (憲法法庭) under the Constitutional Court Procedure Act effective 4 January 2022, modernising constitutional adjudication procedure with adversarial-style hearings and judicial-review framework."
    },
    {
      "year": 2024,
      "title": "Supreme Court / Family Court — friendly-parent jurisprudence consolidation",
      "description": "Supreme Court and Family Courts continue to develop friendly-parent jurisprudence under Civil Code art. 1055-1 in custody disputes, addressing one-parent obstruction of the other-parent relationship within the codified statutory framework — Taiwan retains the substantive friendly-parent doctrine without adopting the 'parental alienation' label as a distinct doctrinal term."
    }
  ],
  "structural_findings": [
    "Taiwan is structurally distinctive within the East Asian cluster for the 2013 statutory codification of the friendly-parent doctrine in Civil Code art. 1055-1 — among the earliest such codifications globally, predating most Anglosphere reforms.",
    "Specialised Family Courts under Family Act 2012 with integrated psychological assessment and mediation align Taiwan with the East Asian specialised-Family-Court cluster (Japan, Korea).",
    "Psychologists Act 2001 provides federal-statutory psychology regulation — places Taiwan in the federal-regulator cluster alongside Japan and Korea.",
    "Non-Hague Convention status due to UN-status constraint, not policy choice — structurally distinct from policy-driven non-Hague jurisdictions."
  ],
  "references": [
    "jurisdiction:china",
    "jurisdiction:japan",
    "jurisdiction:south-korea",
    "jurisdiction:hong-kong",
    "evidence:friendly-parent-doctrine-comparative",
    "evidence:cross-border-parental-abduction-and-pa-intersection",
    "evidence:childrens-rights-paramountcy-doctrine"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Supreme Court of the ROC",
      "url": "https://tps.judicial.gov.tw/",
      "publisher": "Judicial Yuan",
      "language": "zh,en"
    },
    {
      "title": "Constitutional Court",
      "url": "https://cons.judicial.gov.tw/",
      "publisher": "Judicial Yuan",
      "language": "zh,en"
    },
    {
      "title": "Laws and Regulations Database",
      "url": "https://law.moj.gov.tw/",
      "publisher": "Ministry of Justice",
      "language": "zh,en"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ministry of Health and Welfare",
      "url": "https://www.mohw.gov.tw/",
      "publisher": "MOHW",
      "language": "zh,en"
    }
  ],
  "editorial_notes": [
    "Taiwan jurisdiction sidecar v1.1 — deepened 2026-06-08 from 5 to 10 key_developments with full Civil-Code-Family-revision timeline: 1930-enactment + 1985-gender-equality-first-wave + 1996-father-priority-replaced-with-best-interest + 2001-Psychologists-Act + 2003-Family-Education-Act + 2012-Family-Act-Family-Courts + 2013-friendly-parent-codification + 2019-DV-Act-revision + 2022-Constitutional-Court-restructure + 2024-friendly-parent-jurisprudence-consolidation.",
    "Civil-law framework with German-Japanese codified tradition + Civil Code Book IV (1930) + 1996-best-interest-substantive-reform + 2013-friendly-parent-statutory-codification + Family Act 2012 + Psychologists Act 2001 + non-Hague (UN-status constraint, not policy choice).",
    "PA-recognition: silent statutory + no-apex-position + silent regulator; substantive friendly-parent doctrine codified independently of PA framing — Taiwan among the earliest jurisdictions globally to codify the friendly-parent doctrine statutorily.",
    "Joins East-Asian + civil-law + German-Japanese-civil-tradition + friendly-parent-statutory-codification + East-Asian-specialised-Family-Court + federal-psychology-regulator clusters within the corpus."
  ]
}