Analysis of the Supreme Court's Case Dispositions for Civil Appeals in 2020 and the Application of Article 469 of the Code of Civil Procedure
Last edited: 2026-08-31
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Dispositions of Supreme Court Appeal Cases in 2020
To analyze the Judicial Yuan's draft amendment to the Code of Civil Procedure, which proposes converting the grounds for appeal as of right under Article 469, Paragraph 6 into grounds requiring permission to appeal, the following attempts to analyze the practical application of this paragraph based on the statistical data released by the Judicial Yuan for 2020:
Supreme Court Appeal Case Dispositions in 2020 Unit: Cases
Total Disposed Cases
3505
Settlement
1
Withdrawal
65
Others
76
Adjudicated Cases
3363
Unlawful Appeal
1885
Entirely
1879
Partially
6
Lawful Appeal
1478
Ungrounded Appeal
464.5
Grounded Appeal
1013.5
Quashing Original Judgment - Remanding Entirely
892
Quashing Original Judgment - Remanding Partially
110
Rendering Judgment Directly - Entirely
2
Rendering Judgment Directly - Partially
9.5
Percentage of Grounded Appeals among Adjudicated Cases
30.14%
Source:
Judicial Yuan Statistics > Number of Disposed Civil Appeal Cases by the Supreme Court in 2020 - Categorized by Disposition (Adjudication) Status
Judicial Yuan Statistics > Dispositions of Civil Appeal Cases by the Supreme Court in 2020 - Categorized by Year
Conclusion- Looking at the number of cases disposed of by Supreme Court judgments, 69.86% ((1885+464.5)/3363) of the cases fall under "unlawful appeal" or "ungrounded appeal".
- Conversely, 30.14% of the cases resulted in a "grounded appeal", and instances of rendering judgment directly were extremely rare; the majority of cases were remanded to the second-instance court for retrial.
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Analysis of the Application of Article 469 of the Code of Civil Procedure in Supreme Court "Grounded Appeal Cases" in 2020
- According to the data from "Judicial Yuan Statistics > Number and Reasons for Remand or Transfer for Retrial of Civil Appeals in the Supreme Court in 2020 - Categorized by Year" (Attachment 3), the reasons for the 1,112 remanded cases were compiled and categorized into 24 types.
- The aforementioned statistical data are not classified according to the application of statutory provisions; therefore, it is not possible to directly ascertain the application status under Article 469, Paragraph 6 (lack of reasoning in the judgment or contradictory reasoning).
- However, pursuant to Article 226 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a judgment shall state the reasons therefor, and the section on reasons shall state opinions regarding allegations of attacks or defense methods as well as legal opinions. Furthermore, referring to the resolution of the 1st Civil Division Meeting of the Supreme Court dated March 6, 1990, the following circumstances all constitute a "lack of reasoning in the judgment":
- Failure to set forth the content and results of the factual determinations and the weighing of evidence.
- Failure to set forth the correlation between the aforementioned results and the facts to be proved.
- Failure to set forth the logical or empirical rules by which evidence was evaluated, and further failure to set forth the grounds establishing the conviction, such as determining the truth or falsity of facts.
- Failure to deliberate on evidence already investigated by the court or failure to explain the reasons therefor.
- Failure to investigate evidence that was lawfully requested and not unnecessary, or failure to explain the reasons for not investigating.
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Therefore, the following table attempts to map the various reasons for remand to their corresponding and applicable statutory provisions (circumstances deemed to fall under Article 469, Paragraph 6 of the Code of Civil Procedure are marked in bold):
#
Reason for Remand or Transfer
Applicable Provision
Cases
Unclear investigation of evidence or failure to investigate
469(6)
235
Adoption of evidence without stating reasons
469(6)
2
Non-adoption of evidence without stating reasons
469(6)
28
Erroneous, inconsistent, unclear, or ambiguously recorded factual determinations
469(6)
395
Failure to adjudicate matters requested
469(6)
2
Adjudication on matters not requested
2
Non-application or improper application of laws and regulations in the judgment
468+469-1
268
Unlawful composition of the court
469(1)
2
Participation in adjudication by a judge who should have recused himself/herself
469(2)
0
Contradictory reasoning in the judgment
469(6)
33
Evidence not presented
0
Denial of full opportunity for oral argument to parties
469 (5)
5
Participation in judgment by a judge who did not participate in oral arguments
0
Adjudication against an absent party without lawful notice
0
Failure to exercise the power of clarification
46
Failure to fulfill burden of proof instructions
10
Adoption of attack or defense methods without stating reasons
469(6)
1
Non-adoption of attack or defense methods without stating reasons
469(6)
66
Lack of standing to sue
1
Litigation without lawful representation
469(4)
1
Violation of provisions regarding the publicity of oral arguments
469(5)
0
Improper discrimination of court jurisdiction or violation of exclusive jurisdiction
469(3)
2
Other lack of reasoning
469(6)
13
Others
0
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Distribution of Applicable Provisions in Cases where the Supreme Court Found Appeals Grounded
Applicable Provision
Corresponding Reason in Above Table
Cases
Percentage
Article 469, Paragraph 1
8
2
0.17%
Article 469, Paragraph 2
9
0
0%
Article 469, Paragraph 3
22
2
0.17%
Article 469, Paragraph 4
20
1
0.08%
Article 469, Paragraph 5
21
0
0%
Article 469, Paragraph 6
1-15, 10, 17, 18, 23
775
69.69%
Article 468 + Article 469-1
7
268
24.1%
Uncertain
Other unclassified
64
5.75%
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Conclusion
According to the above statistics, the proportion of successful appeals based on Article 469, Paragraph 6 in 2020 was 69.69%. Under the current amendment direction proposed by the Judicial Yuan, future appeals of this nature will all require permission from the Supreme Court in order to obtain judicial relief.
This article is an AI-generated translation of the original Chinese text. In the event of any discrepancy, the Chinese version shall prevail.