Recent media reports said that a district court judge committed suicide by jumping from a building because he was mentally distressed due to heavy work pressure.
Official statistics shows that in 2017, the number of ordinary and special criminal cases totaled 482,428. Seven years later, the most conservative estimate is that the number has exceeded 500,000 cases.
As early as 1990, I strongly advocated in an academic journal that Taiwan should significantly reduce the number of criminal trials. In another academic journal that year, I also put forward a specific proposal for reducing the number of criminal trials.
However, neither of the proposals were taken seriously by the judicial authorities, and the situation has worsened to the extent that the annual number of criminal cases has surpassed 500,000, leading to the death of the aforementioned judge. It is evident who should bear responsibility.
Judicial Yuan President Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) has said that the number of judges should be increased to reduce their workload, but this is an outsider’s view.
First, legal talent is hard to find, so increasing the number of judges would not be easy as increasing the number of ordinary workers. Moreover, if the qualifications to be a judge were lowered to meet this need, the losses would outweigh the gains.
Second, given the high number of criminal cases, not only district court judges, but district prosecutors and judges, as well as high court and Supreme Court judges are also subject to the same work pressure. How can their pain and suffering be solved in a short time?
There is only one way to improve the situation: reduce the number of criminal trials in general. To achieve this goal, there needs to be more clarity in the functions of the Criminal Code.
The Criminal Code is not a moral code, and it does not penalize each and every act that people might find offensive. Its functions are simple: to protect national security as well as people’s lives, bodies and property. All acts unrelated to these functions should be decriminalized to comply with such functions, so as to reduce the number of criminal trials at the least cost.
Based on the above understanding, all “victimless” acts should be decriminalized, except for those related to national security. Under the Criminal Code and the Special Criminal Code, the largest number of victimless acts that are punished are tobacco and drug cases: The decriminalization of such cases would greatly cut the number of criminal trials.
Most people would probably disagree with the idea of decriminalizing tobacco and drug cases. However, as mentioned above, Taiwan’s criminal justice system has come to a point where it is necessary to take drastic measures. Besides, decriminalizing tobacco and drug cases is the least expensive way to do so.
As for the idea that decriminalizing tobacco and drugs might weaken a country, it is not true. The US has the worst tobacco and drug problems, but it is still a global superpower.
Huan Tong-shong is a former president of National Chung Hsing University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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