The heads of the constitutional courts of Taiwan and the Czech Republic met officially for the first time ever this week during a trip by Chief Justice Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) to the central European country.
Hsu and fellow Constitutional Court justices Hwang Jau-yuan (黃昭元) and Tsai Tzung-jen (蔡宗珍) were part of a delegation that visited the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic on June 21 and met that court's president Pavel Rychetský and others.
During their meeting, Hsu and Rychetský talked about their courts' roles in their judicial systems and how they exercise their powers, and discussed cases they had to adjudicate, including judicial reviews of measures to combat COVID-19, Taiwan's Constitutional Court said in a statement.
In a statement of its own, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic said that because this was the first bilateral meeting of representatives of the two institutions, more general topics were covered, including overviews of the two sides' judicial systems.
They found that there were many parallels between the Czech and Taiwanese models of protection of constitutionality and the issues that arise before their courts, the Czech court's statement said.
In an interview with CNA in Prague, Hsu said Taiwan and the Czech Republic share the values of constitutionalism and separation of powers, and could learn from each other in such areas as human rights protection and constitutional litigation.
He also hoped that similar exchanges will continue in the future.
Aside from its visit to the Constitutional Court, Hsu's delegation visited the Czech Senate on June 22 as well as the Faculties of Law of Palacký University and Charles University, where Hwang spoke on Taiwan's constitutional case on same-sex marriage.
