There is an urgent need to reform the legal system, an analyst attending an international forum on democracy said yesterday, urging the international community, particularly Washington, to continue monitoring the development of Taiwan’s democracy.
Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), a professor at National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations, said that because Taiwan is a young democracy, the legal system requires a complete overhaul following two peaceful transfers of power.
Although legal experts and professionals agreed that much has been accomplished over the past decade, Wu said “formalistic equality” still exists between prosecutors and defense lawyers in court.
“If we further look at what happened after the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] came back to power in 2008, we might conclude that the judicial problems are still serious,” he said. “Legal process has been used to target … the opposition, and rule of law [became] rule by law after Ma [Ying-jeou, 馬英九] came to power in May 2008.”
Wu made the remarks at Democracy Building in Asia, a symposium co-hosted by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, the Institute for National Policy Research and the US-based Heritage Foundation.
Referring to comments by Ma’s former professor at Harvard Law School, Jerome Cohen — in which he called for judicial reform and criticized Taiwan’s judiciary, whose actions he said targeted the opposition — Wu said it was a “national embarrassment for a democracy to hear this and it signifies that there is a pressing need to reform.”
Wu proposed to establish a review or evaluation system of prosecutors and judges to weed out those unsuitable for their job, reaffirm the fundamental principle that defendants must be presumed innocent until proven guilty and reform the recruitment program and national examinations of prosecutors and judges.
Wu said that as reform often becomes a political issue, he urged the nation’s leaders to recognize that there are problems that must be addressed, to promote legal reform and to fully accept the conclusions and suggestions of discussions on reform.
He also called on Washington to continue monitoring the development of Taiwan’s freedom and rule of law.
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said at a separate session that improving Taiwan’s legal system was important to consolidate democracy.
“We cannot take democracy for granted,” she said.
Hsiao said the new electoral system of legislators had not just nearly eliminated smaller parties, but also compelled lawmakers to resort to extreme means and to pay more attention to petty matters such as attending weddings or funerals than to policymaking.
It remains to be seen exactly what kind of electoral system would be better suited for Taiwan, she said.
The accountability of legislators was also a problem, she said. Citing the example of transparency in campaign funding, Hsiao said the KMT’s party assets were an important source of its campaign funding, but that the DPP depends on small donations.
In the spirit of transparency, when people ask that the sources of campaign funds be disclosed, by law they must be disclosed, she said.
“But when the factor of China comes in, it starts pressuring businesses or individuals who have certain … business interests in China. That affects the donation requirement and the level playing field and the political process here in Taiwan,” she said.
The quality of legislators was also an issue, she added, saying it was worsened by the media market, which is over-saturated, with more than eight round-the-clock news stations for the country’s 23 million people.
“This over-saturated media market means that usually the more extreme or show-oriented … [or] controversial issues in parliament are the areas that get media attention,” she said.
“This overshadows the quality [of] legislative debates we get in parliament,” she said.
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