Foreigners and people without citizenship may file for state compensation if they were inappropriately detained during legal proceedings, according to the first reading of a draft amendment to the Criminal Compensation Act (刑事補償法), which the Legislative Yuan’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee approved yesterday.
Current regulations state that those requesting compensation for inappropriate detainment must hold Republic of China (ROC) citizenship and if they do not, their country of origin should be a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The Judicial Yuan said that the regulations should keep up with the times to ensure that anyone, including foreigners or non-citizens, can enjoy fair and reasonable treatment in Taiwan.
Photo: Su Fu-nan, Taipei Times
The draft amendments also changed the wording from “former defendants in cases receiving a ‘not guilty’ verdict who have been inappropriately detained may, within two years of the verdict, demand criminal compensation” to “former defendants in cases receiving a ‘not guilty’ verdict who have been inappropriately detained may demand criminal compensation from the date they know of the ruling.”
The changes were made to uphold the rights of those traveling, detained or who did not know or receive notification for other reasons of a ruling, the draft amendments say.
If a person is serving time for others; harbored ulterior motives; committed actions leading to their being suspected; gave false affidavits; attempted to destroy, forge or hide evidence; colluded with coconspirators or witnesses to mislead the investigation or cause an error in judgement, they would not be eligible for compensation, the proposed changes say.
The authority overseeing matters of criminal compensation should note, when reviewing applications, whether the applicant has a record of hiding or fleeing after posting bail or has attempted to disrupt or mislead an investigation or evidence gathering, they say.
The amendments would also increase criminal compensation rates to 1.5 times to double the fines paid, with interest to be increased to 2 percent from 1 percent.
The draft says that the Judicial Yuan must investigate, research and analyze reasons for erroneous verdicts in criminal cases to help restore the public’s faith in the judicial system.
The committee yesterday also approved a draft amendment to Article 5 of the Organic Act for the Investigation Bureau, Ministry of Justice (法務部調查局組織法), which would reduce the number of deputy directors-general from three to two, while one of the deputy directors-general would be tasked to handle IT development, cybercrime, cybersecurity, forensics science and digital surveillance.
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