Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) on Friday adjourned a contentious discussion among legislative caucuses over a bill for citizen participation in criminal court procedures, although the talks are to resume tomorrow.
At the time of adjournment, only 35 of 113 articles for the proposed lay judge system — which would place six lay judges alongside a panel of three official judges — were addressed, and only two were agreed upon.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) and New Power Party (NPP) caucus whip Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said the bill, which would significantly affect the judicial process, should not be rushed during an extraordinary legislative session.
Screen grab from the Legislative Yuan Parliamentary TV Web site
However, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said that “the time for reform has come,” and urged those involved to review the proposal item by item.
The meeting was rife with disagreements on terminology and the contents of the bill, as well as on the name of the proposed act.
Although the Judicial Yuan, which proposed the bill, has called it the “citizen participation in criminal trial procedures act,” the DPP caucus proposed naming it the “national judge act,” removing words, such as “participation,” that it says might not fit the final language of the bill.
The KMT caucus said the word “judge” should not be used in the name, as it might blur the distinction between judges and lay judges.
It also said the name should replace “national” with “citizen.”
The KMT, DPP and NPP caucuses agreed that 18-year-olds should be eligible to serve as lay judges, while the Judicial Yuan said that as many people at that age are still in school, there would be a higher percentage of them who would refuse to serve.
The Judicial Yuan also said that 18-year-olds might not be able to handle the psychological pressure of being a lay judge, and instead proposed 23 as the minimum age to be considered eligible.
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) said that a lay judge system and a jury system should be implemented simultaneously, with the lay judge system handling criminal cases with potential prison sentences of seven or more years, and the jury system addressing matters involving corruption, insurrection or obstruction of official duty.
Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Lin Hui-huang (林輝煌) said that the TPP proposal was impractical and would require lay judges to learn two judicial systems.
Using sentences as the basis for which system would handle a case lacks a legal basis, he added.
DPP caucus Secretary-General Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) yesterday said that judicial reform has been delayed since 2012, and the DPP hopes to complete it during this extraordinary session.
The proposed lay judge system should be considered a priority, as limited resources cannot sustain the introduction of a lay judges and jury trial system simultaneously, he said.
Additional reporting by Lee Hsin-fang
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
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
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Restarting the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant would take up to 18 months, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today. Kuo was answering questions during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where legislators are considering amendments to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條) amid concerns about the consequences of the Pingtung County reactor’s decommissioning scheduled for May 17. Its decommissioning is to mark the end of Taiwan’s nuclear power production. However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of existing