Taiwan’s judiciary has long suffered from a malaise and a lack of public trust. The government’s national conference on judicial reform that started on Monday is the first real effort at reform since the failure of the national conference in 1999.
Hopefully, viable proposals to improve the judicial system and its operational efficiency will be made this time, so that the judiciary can win back public trust.
Many of the reforms up for debate are issues that were not resolved 18 years ago. Taiwan has become a much more open and democratic society since then, and calls for meaningful reforms are much louder. A number of these issues are relatively easy to resolve, but systemic reform is another matter.
During former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration the will was there, but the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) controlled the legislature, and any bills geared toward reform that were sent to the legislature disappeared.
Chen made only modest progress during his two terms in office. His successor, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), despite having a law degree and having been minister of justice, was not committed to judicial reform, and his proposals were met with a tepid reception, despite his advantage in controlling the executive and legislative branches. For eight years under Ma, judicial reforms were ignored.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is far better placed to initiate reforms. Judicial Yuan President Hsu Zhong-li (許宗力) and Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) are Tsai’s appointees. As convener of the national conference, Tsai is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the reforms.
For now, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is in the legislative majority and so there is unlikely to be resistance to draft proposals. This is a rare opportunity for judicial reform and it must be seized.
The latest opinion polls show that about 40 percent of Taiwanese have confidence in the Tsai government delivering judicial reforms. That means a majority remain doubtful. Public confidence has dropped 7.9 percentage points compared with a poll taken in August last year, suggesting most Taiwanese are pessimistic about reforms.
The lack of public confidence could be because of the apparently hurried preparations for the conference and questions about committee members, as well as the opaque way in which committee meetings have been conducted. There is a suspicion that the conference is purely formal and that many decisions have already been made.
The 1999 reform attempt was handled differently. It was overseen by the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice, sought comprehensive debate on, and restructuring of, the system from within, using a three-phase triangulated review process.
The latest attempt is overseen by the Presidential Office, with opinions solicited from outside.
Although opinions have been sought and despite the majority of committee members being from outside the judiciary, and regardless of efforts to include society’s input, judicial reform as a whole will rely on the judicial reform committee discussions to keep debates focused.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
On May 13, the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to Article 6 of the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of nuclear reactors from 40 to 60 years, thereby providing a legal basis for the extension or reactivation of nuclear power plants. On May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators used their numerical advantage to pass the TPP caucus’ proposal for a public referendum that would determine whether the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant should resume operations, provided it is deemed safe by the authorities. The Central Election Commission (CEC) has