The term “dinosaur judges” stems from a misperception of how the law operates, said Chang Pei-chieh (張沛婕), a Taipei First Girls’ High School student who has been approved to study in National Taiwan University’s (NTU) College of Law.
Chang made the comments yesterday in a press statement announcing the results of the Advanced Subject Test.
Chang said she thought she had done well in the initial General Scholastic Abilities Test, but signed up for the Advanced Subject Test when her scores did not match her expectations.
Photo: CNA
The Advanced Subject Test is a means to increase university admissions, allowing departments to decide admittance thresholds.
Students select the universities they prefer to attend in order of preference and register them online. They are placed according to their exam scores.
Chang said she had always liked logical thinking, which is an important factor when studying law.
Learning law would enable her to protect her own rights and those of her friends and family, she said.
Chang said she was fond of the US TV show Suits, but it had not influenced her decision to study law at NTU.
Chang said she was sympathetic toward the judiciary, which in recent years has been criticized for its “dinosaur judges.”
The public’s perception of the law might be rather superficial, Chang said, adding that she suspects that while judges might consider a suspect’s actions to be morally unacceptable, the judges are bound by the law and must render judgements accordingly.
This is probably the main reason rulings sometimes fall far from what people expect, Chang said.
The public should invest time to understand the law more precisely, she said.
Chang said her personality played a factor in her decision to choose NTU and she strives to understand reasons in a seemingly unreasonable situation, where other people might simply let it be.
Chang said she was leaning toward becoming a lawyer, rather than devoting herself to the judiciary by becoming a judge.
By the time she is 70, one-quarter of the population would be elderly and she might not have pension benefits, she added.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
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