The long-standing problem of Taiwan’s “dinosaur judges” finally saw some light in July last year when amendments to the Judges Act (法官法) allowed the public to directly request that judges’ and prosecutors’ competency be evaluated.
The amended act ordered the Judicial Yuan to establish the Judicial Evaluation Committee for judges, and the Judicial Personnel Review Committee to evaluate their appointments, removals and transfers.
Under the new system, which was hailed by some as a milestone in judicial reform, if the pertinent evaluation committee found that a punishment was warranted, the case would go straight to the Court of the Judiciary without passing through the Control Yuan. The law also increased the percentage of academics and neutral civilian representatives on each committee.
With further amendments passed last month, all such hearings, with some exceptions, would be open to the public. This makes sense due to allegations that officials were covering for each other behind closed doors.
All of this sounds great on paper — the public is empowered to push back against dinosaur judges — and people did take up the government’s offer. Members of the public filed 622 complaints in the past year requesting evaluations of judges or prosecutors — 30 times more than in years prior to the amendments.
However, last week, the Judicial Reform Foundation said that not one of the complaints was successful.
Instead of reflecting on what to improve, the Judicial Yuan denied that the process does not work, saying that one year is too short to evaluate it. People have mistaken the evaluation system for a complaints platform, it said, adding that many people request to evaluate a judge’s legal opinions instead of their conduct, while other petitions were groundless, repetitive, filed anonymously and so on.
One problem with allowing people to freely request evaluations is that there will inevitably be invalid petitions filed — but all of them? That seems impossible. This news will definitely cause the public’s low confidence in the judicial system to plummet more.
A survey in February by National Chung Cheng University showed that public trust in the nation’s judges had dropped to 26.7 percent. At the time, the hot topics were the acquittal of the murderer of Lee Cheng-han (李承翰), a 25-year-old railway officer, and a corruption scandal involving former Supreme Court judge Shih Mu-chin (石木欽) and businessman Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾) that implicated 200 judicial and government officials.
With such mistrust and long-brewing resentment toward the justice system, people are unlikely to accept the Judicial Yuan’s explanations. Transparency regarding what really happened with the 622 petitions is needed. For example, the Judicial Reform Foundation suggested that the Judicial Yuan compile all of the petitions and the evaluation proceedings in an annual report.
If so many people do not understand what constitutes punishable conduct by judges, the committees should increase public awareness and ensure that valid petitions are not simply dismissed due to some technical error.
Taiwanese have had to cope with incompetent judges and prosecutors for long enough, and the judiciary still faces a steep climb to regain public trust, despite the government’s efforts to reform the system.
What is the point of opening judicial hearings to the public if none of the petitions was accepted? The problem needs to be fixed at the source, with transparency regarding what happened to the past year’s petitions being just the start.
It is almost three years since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a friendship with “no limits” — weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since then, they have retreated from such rhetorical enthusiasm. The “no limits” language was quickly dumped, probably at Beijing’s behest. When Putin visited China in May last year, he said that he and his counterpart were “as close as brothers.” Xi more coolly called the Russian president “a good friend and a good neighbor.” China has conspicuously not reciprocated Putin’s description of it as an ally. Yet the partnership
The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu (孫子) said “know yourself and know your enemy and you will win a hundred battles.” Applied in our times, Taiwanese should know themselves and know the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so that Taiwan will win a hundred battles and hopefully, deter the CCP. Taiwanese receive information daily about the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) threat from the Ministry of National Defense and news sources. One area that needs better understanding is which forces would the People’s Republic of China (PRC) use to impose martial law and what would be the consequences for living under PRC
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that he expects this year to be a year of “peace.” However, this is ironic given the actions of some KMT legislators and politicians. To push forward several amendments, they went against the principles of legislation such as substantive deliberation, and even tried to remove obstacles with violence during the third readings of the bills. Chu says that the KMT represents the public interest, accusing President William Lai (賴清德) and the Democratic Progressive Party of fighting against the opposition. After pushing through the amendments, the KMT caucus demanded that Legislative Speaker
Although former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo — known for being the most pro-Taiwan official to hold the post — is not in the second administration of US president-elect Donald Trump, he has maintained close ties with the former president and involved himself in think tank activities, giving him firsthand knowledge of the US’ national strategy. On Monday, Pompeo visited Taiwan for the fourth time, attending a Formosa Republican Association’s forum titled “Towards Permanent World Peace: The Shared Mission of the US and Taiwan.” At the event, he reaffirmed his belief in Taiwan’s democracy, liberty, human rights and independence, highlighting a
RSS