Nearly 80 percent of respondents to a poll expressed doubt about the impartiality of judges, while a larger number said they were dissatisfied with judicial reform efforts, a poll released on Friday by National Chung Cheng University’s Crime Research Center showed.
The survey showed that 21.9 percent of respondents said judges conduct trials correctly, down 1.2 percentage points from a previous poll.
The government in August 2017 convened the National Congress on Judicial Reform, but 80.9 percent of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with its efforts.
Photo: Liu Ching-hou, Taipei Times
Asked about countermeasures against false news reports, 81 percent of respondents said they support the government’s use of police and the judiciary, with 49.8 percent expressing strong approval.
Regarding public security, 91.3 percent, a record, said they felt safe in their neighborhoods, while satisfaction regarding public security rose 11.1 percentage points.
The poll showed that 77.5 percent of respondents were satisfied with the performance of police in maintaining public security, also a record, after a crackdown on gangs and weapons in the run-up to the local elections in November last year.
Support for improvements in salaries and welfare for police, firefighters and prison officials was high, with 87.8 percent of respondents approving.
However, when asked about the performance of prosecutors, only 32.3 percent said they were satisfied, including 2.3 percent expressing high satisfaction.
Support for the death penalty was high, with 79.6 percent disagreeing that it should be abolished, including 53 percent who expressed strong disapproval, while 26.6 percent said they disagree, but would be willing to consider other options. Only 15.7 percent supported ending capital punishment.
Meanwhile, 72.6 percent said they were dissatisfied with the government’s performance in tackling corruption, the poll showed.
Regarding the legalization of cannabis, 95.4 percent disagreed that the law should be changed, while 51.4 percent said they were dissatisfied with the government’s performance in drug prevention, but more than half said that fraud prevention was satisfactory.
Asked if they supported rules to make the personal information of sex offenders in their communities public, 72.4 percent said yes, including 45.1 percent who expressed strong approval.
The poll, which was conducted from Jan. 23 to 25, collected 1,802 valid samples and has a margin of error of 2.31 percentage points.
The survey project was convened by center director Yang Shi-lung (楊士隆), with criminology professors Cheng Jui-lung (鄭瑞隆), who is also the dean of student affairs, and Hsu Hua-fu (許華孚) as deputy conveners.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS