The rule of weighing interests is one of the legal boundaries of thefreedom of project formation that an administrative authority should observewhen it draws up or approves an urban plan. The rule of weighing interestsmeans that "when drawing up or approving a plan, an administrative authorityshould weigh the different public and private interests of the various partiesthat may be affected by the plan so as to make the various interests in theplan be in a harmonized state." (See the Supreme Administrative CourtJudgment 108-Shang-Zi No. 626). Recently, there have been two noteworthy judgmentsof the Administrative Court invalidating urban plans in which flaws in theweighing of interests occurred.  They arenot common cases since the Administrative Litigation Act added the "UrbanPlan Review Procedure."

The Taipei High Administrative Court Superior Division Judgment111-Du-Su-Zi No. 1 determines a case relating to the change in the individualrezoning of land use by Taipei City Government under an urban plan in order toaccommodate the construction of a rapid transit facility. The Court held that,in regard to the land selection, the city failed to take into account thepossibility of utilizing other lands surrounding the plaintiff's land, such asthe use of nearby public lands, the space of center divisional islands, orother private lands, in the necessity of selecting the land in this case, andthus had the flaw of insufficient consideration.

In Taipei High Administrative Court High Administrative LitigationDivision Judgment 111-Du-Su-Zi No. 2, the background was that the New TaipeiCity Government planned to widen roads and expropriate lands under an urbanplan’s overall review. The court held that the public interest of the overallreview should be strictly scrutinized and pointed out that the plan not onlyfailed to investigate and justify the reasons for the need to widen the road,which is flawed in terms of the procedure of weighing interests, but alsofailed to properly investigate and weigh the interests of all parties affectedby the plan, thus violating the law by being slack in assessment. In addition,the plan was not necessary because it was used for landscaping and greeningwithout actually widening the road. The project was eventually declaredinvalid.

From the court opinions in these two cases, one can see whether theplanners have conducted a complete and specific evaluation and comparison ofdifferent alternatives and whether they have investigated and weighed theinterests of various parties, which are the key points in the court’s examinationof flaws in weighing interests. In addition, the disputes in the backgroundfacts of the above cases existed in previous plans. Although the court cannotinvalidate the previous plans, it will examine whether the planner hasincorporated the changes in the background facts of previous plans into the newplan's data collection and decision on alternatives. If the planner only reasonedwith the urgency in the projects or simply followed the old plans withoutfulfilling the obligation of investigation and evaluation, it would alsoconstitute a flaw in weighing interests.

According to Paragraph 4 of Article 237-28 of the Code of AdministrativeProcedure, a court's final judgment declaring an urban plan invalid is also effectiveon third parties. Since urban plans affect public welfare and people's rights,how the court determines that an urban plan violates the law by being flawed inweighing the interests of the people is worthy of the attention of relevantpractitioners and interested parties.

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