New Taipei City police officer Chang Chia-feng (張家逢) was attacked with a meat cleaver by a member of the public when he was on duty. The prosecutor filed a request to have the suspect detained, but the judge granted him bail of NT$300,000, triggering a storm of public criticism.
The prosecutor filed a second request that was approved. This incident shows that there are shortcomings in how detentions are handled. According to Article 101 of the Criminal Code, to ensure that prosecution can be carried out, if an accused is charged with an offense punishable by death, life imprisonment or imprisonment of no less than five years, he can be detained.
Chang was attacked with a meat cleaver, which may be considered attempted murder or intent to cause injury, which are serious offenses eligible for detention. Hence, it appears that there was no reason for the judge to grant bail.
However, according to the Council of Grand Justices’ Interpretation No. 665: “If an order of detention of a defendant is issued solely based on the suspicion that he or she is a major suspect, the detention will constitute an execution of criminal punishments prior to a trial and will likely be deemed in contravention of the principle of the presumption of innocence.”
Since the judge can only make a ruling on detention based on the offenses and evidence presented by the prosecutor, there is a risk that detention could be used to extract a confession.
Hence, Interpretation No. 665 clearly stipulates that a serious offense alone cannot be used to order detention: There has to be reasonable grounds for believing that the accused might escape, destroy, fabricate or falsify evidence, or conspire with accomplices or witnesses.
As there was no cause to believe that the suspect might escape, there seems little reason to question whether the decision by the court to grant bail was in line with the principles delineated in Interpretation No. 665. However, what should be done to ensure the protection of human rights has to also pass the test of the real world.
Although a suspect will not necessarily attempt escape after committing a serious offense, such as murder, and although it is not necessarily true that there is a higher probability that such a suspect would repeat the offense, the accused is charged with a serious offense, and even though there is a faint possibility that he might escape, the question is whether the public would be content with the court’s decision not to detain him.
Further, to what extent or degree should the prosecutor prove the likelihood that the suspect might escape? There is no set rule for that either.
In this case the prosecutor said that the accused might attempt to escape, because he allegedly did so after the officer was attacked, whereas the judge decided to grant him bail on the grounds that the suspect turned himself in.
The two arguments show just how fuzzy the line is between the possibility that an accused would run away and that they would not, which means similar cases might be handled in a variety of ways depending on the judge. That is a breach of the principle of fairness.
Per Article 14 of the Organic Act of Courts (法院組織法), which was amended in June and will take effect on Jan. 1 next year, district courts and the High Court have to set up a special court for reviewing coercive measures with the aim of addressing the inconsistency in detention orders.
With the establishment of these special courts, the Judicial Yuan should take the initiative to lay down criteria for detention based on this article for judges to adhere to when handing down rulings.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate professor and chair of Aletheia University’s law department.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
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