Article 1090 of the Civil Code stipulates: “When a father or a mother abuses his/her parental right(s), the nearest senior relative(s) or the family council may admonish the parent. An application may be made to the court for suspending all or some of the parental rights shall the alleged admonition be in vain.” That specified wording of ‘the nearest senior relative(s)’ is meant to refer to the nearest senior relative(s) of 'the abusive parent'. Thus the Interpretation Yuan-tze No. 1398 of this Yuan shall be reaffirmed.

　　　 At the 118th Meeting of the Grand Justices Council of the Judicial Yuan, it was resolved that “when a central or local government agency, in the application of the Constitution, laws or administrative orders, encounters doubts on any Interpretation of the Judicial Yuan and consequently submits a petition for a further Interpretation, this Meeting may make a re-Interpretation under Article 4 or Article 7 of the Grand Justices Council Adjudication Act.” The present petition concerns questions raised by the Supreme Court about Interpretation Yuan-tze No. 1398 of the Judicial Yuan, thus it shall be re-interpreted in accordance with the above resolution.　Article 1090 of the Civil Code stipulates: “When a father or a mother abuses his/her parental right(s), the nearest senior relative(s) or the family council may admonish the parent. An application may be made to the court for suspending all or some of the parental rights shall the alleged admonition be in vain.” It is obvious, from synthetic observation of the legal wording, that 'the nearest senior relative(s)' specifically refers to the nearest senior relative(s) of the abusive parent. On the basis of Chinese family ethics, the legal admonition of abusive parental rights is considered to be under the appropriate authority of the parent's senior relative(s) apart from a legally organized family council, and the above provision in question shall thus be read accordingly. If ‘the nearest senior relative(s)’ referred to the abused child's nearest senior relatives, the admonishers could have been the abusive parents themselves, and the situation would have been unacceptable. Even in cases where one of the parents is not the abuser and such detached status might qualify such parent as an independent admonisher, doubts would also be raised as to the effectiveness of the admonition itself, for a father assumes equal status with a mother and neither has more parental rights than the other. In such circumstances, though, the applicability of other laws (the Children Welfare Act, for instance) has to be considered for the purposes of safeguarding the rights and interests of the child. Therewith, the Interpretation Yuan-tze No. 1398 of this Yuan shall be reaffirmed.