Judges are supposed to uphold justice. They should be the last line of defense in the judicial system. It is surprising, then, that Taiwanese judges have come close to the bottom in the recently published Taiwan Social Trust Survey. This unfortunate fact is more than a warning. It is an absolute disgrace.
The fact that the judiciary has arrived at this sorry state of affairs is certainly not without reason. Huang Jui-hua (黃瑞華) recently resigned as president of the Yilan District Court to protest the manner in which court officials and members of the Judicial Yuan tend to close ranks. This is another example of how bad things are. One is forced to conclude that the judiciary is something of a lost cause.
Huang quit because as head of the district court she was not happy with the decision by the court’s disciplinary committee to downgrade a disciplinary action imposed on the hapless Judge Chen Jia-nien (陳嘉年) from a written admonishment, as she had recommended, to a mere reprimand. Then the Judicial Yuan’s Judicial Personnel Review Committee declined even to issue a reprimand, letting Chen off with just a verbal warning.
With the disciplinary committee on one side and the personnel review committee on the other, both working to “protect their own,” Huang’s attempts at reform were destined to be thwarted. This being the case, her position became untenable. How could she not step down?
To see Huang’s resignation as nothing more than a dig at the Judicial Yuan is to give the issue less gravity than it deserves.
The important thing is that the Judicial Yuan missed an opportunity to redeem itself. In its own institutional self-interest, it frustrated Huang in her determination for reform and disciplinary action and subverted her authority as president of the district court.
Judges operate with impunity, handing down harsh penalties to defendants while tolerating each other’s abuses. Good judges follow suit, and disregard the rights of the public, unconcerned about trust in the judiciary. This is the beginning of a very slippery slope.
Huang began her resignation letter to Judicial Yuan President Rai Hau-min (賴浩敏) by asking him whether she was wrong. She asked him, when the interests of the judiciary come into conflict with the rights of the public, with which party the Judicial Yuan sides.
Huang knows whom she sides with: The public.
For her, Chen’s actions were a serious detriment to the rights of individuals involved in the cases he was hearing. First he neglected to ask social workers to attend the victim in a sexual assault trial, as is required, thereby subjecting her to a grueling cross-examination that ultimately resulted in her running from the court in tears. Chen had also delayed submitting papers for a year and 10 months. He has continually shown himself over the past three years to be a “dinosaur judge.”
Rather than Chen being sacrificed to the cause of judicial reform, however, it has been Huang, the person who has been trying to live up to public expectations, who has been cast as the bad guy.
Huang’s departure is but one chapter in this saga, but it at least shows us that courageous souls do still exist in that world, beacons of light in the darkness. We can only hope that she continues to shine, one day to rekindle the judiciary, to guide it back into the light.
Well done, Huang Jui-hua. We applaud you.
Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
Taiwan-India relations appear to have been put on the back burner this year, including on Taiwan’s side. Geopolitical pressures have compelled both countries to recalibrate their priorities, even as their core security challenges remain unchanged. However, what is striking is the visible decline in the attention India once received from Taiwan. The absence of the annual Diwali celebrations for the Indian community and the lack of a commemoration marking the 30-year anniversary of the representative offices, the India Taipei Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, speak volumes and raise serious questions about whether Taiwan still has a coherent India
RSS