More than 80 percent of people expect the justice system to improve when the lay judge system is implemented on Sunday, Judicial Yuan officials said on Tuesday, before holding a mock trial to show how it would work.
In a national survey conducted by Evidence-Based Survey and Research Co last month, 81.7 percent of respondents said they were aware of the change, while 83 percent said that citizen judges would improve the justice system, Judicial Yuan spokesman Chang Yong-hong (張永宏) told a morning news conference at the Judicial Yuan in Taipei.
Of the respondents, 61.5 percent were willing to be a citizen judge, Chang said, adding that their main reasons were to provide differing opinions (86.2 percent), to improve transparency in the justice system (84.7 percent), and to promote interaction and the exchange of opinions from different social sectors during trials (83.2 percent).
Photo: Chang Wen-chuan, Taipei Times
Chang said that 45.9 percent of respondents were willing to be citizen judges for four to five days at a time.
The survey received responses from 1,068 people and had a confidence level of 95 percent.
“It is clear that most people support the new change and are willing to perform the role of citizen judge... After the process gets started, it will have a positive effect ... [and] improve [the public’s] trust in the justice system,” said Lee Ti-jen (李釱任), head of the Judicial Yuan’s Criminal Department.
Respondents who were willing to participate as citizen judges said that they would need to be sent guidebooks explaining topics such as legal principles, court proceedings and the lay judge system, Lee said.
In the afternoon, the Judicial Yuan conducted a mock trial, with six people chosen randomly from 95 journalists and media workers to be citizen judges, while Judge Liao Chien-nan (廖健男) presided over the trial, with media executives acting as the other two judges.
The scripted case involved a university academic who was charged with the attempted murder of his elder sister, and professional prosecutors and lawyers presented both sides of the case.
The Citizen Judges Act (國民法官法) was approved by the Legislative Yuan on July 22 and promulgated on Aug. 12. Under the act, six lay people are to be randomly selected as citizen judges to participate in trial proceedings and adjudicate cases alongside three professional judges in certain felony cases.
They would not preside over cases involving juvenile crimes, offenses covered by the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例) or other criminal cases deemed not suitable for citizen judges.
Judicial officials have hailed the introduction of the lay judge system as a milestone in the nation’s history, but legal rights advocates from the Judicial Reform Foundation have said it does not go far enough, pushing for a jury system such as in the US.
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