Taiwan

In Taiwan, the Supervision of Temples Act was enacted to tackle the perceived problems of misuse and misappropriation by religious charlatans associated with (or in the name of) Chinese religions. The Constitutional Court invalided the statute in 2004 for violating the constitutional rights of religious freedom: the restrictions were disproportionate and the singling out of only Buddhist and Daoist places of worships was discriminatory. Attempts to replace the statute with one that regulates all religions have all been unsuccessful. General criminal provisions continued to be regularly employed against religious fraud. For religious sexual fraud, the Taiwan courts face a similar doctrinal hurdle as with China: the statutory provision is not readily amicable towards punishing sexual fraud. In response, the Taiwanese courts carved out a special interpretation to extend the forcible sex provision to religious sexual fraud, and to religious sexual fraud only. This determined doctrinal manoeuvre is complemented by a near universal finding of falsity to sustain an extremely high rate of conviction. Notably, the findings of falsity are underpinned by a detectable judicial conception of legitimate religions: ‘real’ religion is ‘pure’ and focuses on cultivating spiritual harmony rather than sexual lust. For religious property fraud, the doctrinal complication of applying the fraud provision is constitutional. The Taiwanese courts acknowledged the constraints posed by religious freedom, and at times do demonstrate considerable restrain and deference when assessing falsity. Nonetheless, the more common approach is to evaluate the defendant’s claims against what the courts considered as prevailing social norms. This is coupled with the expressed judicial sentiment that ‘real’ religions do not advocate immediate supernatural solutions to practical problems.