Legal Cultural Analysis on Consumer Debt Clearance Act and the Related Regulations

Abstract

SUMMARY Taiwan was confronted with the dual-card storm a credit card and cash card crisis in 2005 tens of thousands of card slaves encountered debt abysses helplessly At then the Bankruptcy Law was not applicable to such situations; additionally the 2006 Debt Negotiation Mechanism offered by the Bankers Association of the Republic of China was merely a disguised standard repayment contract Until the emergence of Consumer Debt Clearance Act card slaves finally had a slim chance of survival This study utilizes Legal Cultural Analysis as the research method which discusses the development of Consumer Debt Clearance Act and offers its court rulings as references to observe the reflected legal cultural phenomena Furthermore from the observation to discover whether the act matches with the old saying “paying off debts is perfectly justified” or has any relaxation in the issue of card debts From the discussion this research also points out that when there is a conflict between the property benefit of a creditor and the right to life of a debtor the creditor should make some concessions As a result due to the current financial market has built its foundation on debts the study suggests that when the government considers legislative policies of Consumer Debt Clearance Act in the future it should also consider the observations from this study instead of merely limiting the acts in a binary opposition condition between corporations and the needy Key words：dual-card storm card debt Consumer Debt Clearance Act legal cultural analysis bankruptcy procedure rehabilitation programs liquidation procedure

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Supervisor	Shu-Chin Kuo (Supervisor)