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, Subparagraph 6 into grounds requiring permission to appeal, the following attempts to analyze the practical application of this subparagraph based on the statistical data released by the Judicial Yuan for 2020:
Source:Supreme Court Civil Appeal Case Dispositions in 2020 (Unit: Cases) Disposition Cases Total Disposed Cases 3,505 Settlement 1 Withdrawal 65 Others 76 Adjudicated Cases 3,363 Inadmissible Appeal Subtotal 1,885 Entirely 1,879 Partially 6 Admissible Appeal Subtotal 1,478 Appeal Without Merit 464.5 Appeal With Merit Subtotal 1,013.5 Reversing Original Judgment - Remanding Entirely 892 Reversing Original Judgment - Remanding Partially 110 Rendering Judgment Directly - Entirely 2 Rendering Judgment Directly - Partially 9.5 Percentage of Appeals With Merit among Adjudicated Cases 30.14%
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 "inadmissible appeal" or "appeal without merit".
- Conversely, 30.14% of the cases resulted in an "appeal with merit", and instances of rendering judgment directly were extremely rare; the majority of cases were remanded to the court of second instance.
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Analysis of the Application of Article 469 of the Code of Civil Procedure in Supreme Court Cases Where the Appeal Was Found to Have Merit 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), a total of 1,112 grounds for remand or transfer 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, Subparagraph 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 means of attack or defense 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, Subparagraph 6 of the Code of Civil Procedure are marked in bold):
# Reason for Remand or Transfer Applicable Provision Cases 1 Unclear investigation of evidence or failure to investigate 469(6) 235 2 Adoption of evidence without stating reasons 469(6) 2 3 Non-adoption of evidence without stating reasons 469(6) 28 4 Erroneous, inconsistent, unclear, or ambiguously recorded factual determinations 469(6) 395 5 Failure to adjudicate matters requested 469(6) 2 6 Adjudication on matters not requested 2 7 Non-application or improper application of laws and regulations in the judgment 468+469-1 268 8 Unlawful composition of the court 469(1) 2 9 Participation in adjudication by a judge who should have been disqualified by law 469(2) 0 10 Contradictory reasoning in the judgment 469(6) 33 11 Evidence not presented 0 12 Denial of full opportunity for oral argument to parties 5 13 Participation in judgment by a judge who did not participate in oral arguments 0 14 Adjudication against an absent party without lawful notice 0 15 Failure to exercise the power of clarification 46 16 Failure to fulfill burden of proof instructions 10 17 Adoption of means of attack or defense without stating reasons 469(6) 1 18 Non-adoption of means of attack or defense without stating reasons 469(6) 66 19 Lack of standing to sue 1 20 Party not lawfully represented in the action 469(4) 1 21 Violation of provisions regarding the publicity of oral arguments 469(5) 0 22 Erroneous determination of jurisdiction or violation of exclusive jurisdiction 469(3) 2 23 Other lack of reasoning 469(6) 13 24 Others 0 Total 1,112 -
Distribution of Applicable Provisions in Cases where the Supreme Court Found Appeals to Have Merit
Applicable Provision Corresponding Reason in Above Table Cases Percentage Article 469, Subparagraph 1 8 2 0.18% Article 469, Subparagraph 2 9 0 0% Article 469, Subparagraph 3 22 2 0.18% Article 469, Subparagraph 4 20 1 0.09% Article 469, Subparagraph 5 21 0 0% Article 469, Subparagraph 6 1-5, 10, 17, 18, 23 775 69.69% Article 468 + Article 469-1 7 268 24.1% Uncertain Other unclassified 64 5.76% -
Conclusion
According to the above statistics, Article 469, Subparagraph 6 accounted for 69.69% of the grounds on which the Supreme Court found appeals to have merit in 2020. 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.
