Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, proposed three main objectives for judicial reform during a meeting with lawyers of his campaign support group. Other presidential candidates will have to deal with this issue as well. As early as the administration of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), judicial reform has always been a key issue.
There is no panacea for all judicial problems. When settling a legal dispute or a lawsuit, it is impossible to satisfy everyone. There would always be a winner and a loser. Society has become even more complex, giving rise to all types of disputes. If a pedestrian is injured by a robot, who should be held responsible? The manufacturer? The user? Or the robot’s owner?
Universities have started to offer courses on these issues. The judiciary should not wait until an incident occurs. This is why judicial reform has to be a constant process. It needs to keep up with the times and move forward.
Today, the public finds fault with the judiciary for these reasons: incorrect rulings that have led to a lack of public trust; investigations and trials that are slow and prolonged; the involvement of external factors or interests that influence the courts’ stance.
Victims understandably lose patience, with many realizing the truth of the saying that one should avoid going to court because it could all be for nought.
However, people are sometimes left with no choice but to take a dispute to court, be it a neighbors’ feud, a car accident or other unpredictable altercations. As in the case of medicine, laws should be understood as a preventive solution. Laws are for everyone, as all of us might one day be involved in a dispute in our daily lives. It is hence significantly important to educate the public on legal matters, and legal services should be offered extensively for all.
Like medicine, people take preventive measures to stay healthy and avoid exorbitant medical expenses. Similarly, if ordinary people have some basic understanding of how the legal system works, they would know that there is a six-month limit on filing a complaint or to avoid vaguely worded contracts. Many people know hardly a thing about the law, and when they lose a lawsuit, they often blame prosecutors or judges.
In addition, institutionalizing a system for appointing expert witnesses could better address social changes and reduce the time needed to resolve a case. Delays in judgements and investigations could be avoided, and prevent external forces or money from influencing and abusing the system.
Rome was not built in a day. The law must be amended so that experts can enter the courts and help judges discover the truth. In doing so, judgements can be accurately made without delay, and people’s trust in the judicial system would be restored.
Chuang Sheng-rong is a lawyer.
Translated by Emma Liu
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS