Lawmakers yesterday passed amendments to the Judges Act (法官法) that would allow litigants to request that the judge presiding over their case undergo a review to ensure fairness in adjudication.
The motion tendered by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus says that no one knows how a judge is behaving better than plaintiffs and defendants.
Therefore, plaintiffs and defendants should be allowed to request a review of their presiding judge if they feel one is necessary, rather than having to commission a third-party organization to file a request on their behalf, the motion says.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
A proposal that prosecutors should also be allowed to apply for a review did not make it into the final amendment, as lawmakers believed that prosecutors fall under the jurisdiction of prosecutors’ offices, which are government agencies, so they are covered by an existing regulation that stipulates that an office may request a review on a prosecutor’s behalf.
The Judicial Yuan says that governments of other nations very rarely require litigants to commission a civic group to request a review of their presiding judge.
Litigants may request the help of the Judicial Evaluation Committee if they believe that a judge has committed major infractions.
Aside from the litigants, a review could also be opened if at least three other judges that serve at the same court, the court itself, a higher court, the corresponding prosecutors’ office, or a regional or national lawyers’ union request one.
To address the short window of time during which litigants may file for a review, the amended act stipulates a period of three years after a verdict has been delivered or six years from when a court receives a case.
The act previously stipulated that the Judicial Yuan must conduct a thorough audit of judges every three years, but the results are not available for public viewing and only serve as a basis for the professional evaluation of judges.
The triennial internal review has a limited ability to render an objective account of judges’ performances, the DPP caucus said.
As litigants would have the right to request a review of judges after the passage of the amendments, lawmakers resolved to abolish the internal review mechanism.
Judicial Reform Foundation chairman Lin Yung-sung (林永頌) lauded the change to allow litigants to request judge reviews, but said that witnesses should also be given the same right.
It is a pity that the rule that allowed civic groups to request a review on behalf of a litigant was abolished, as some litigants might be too afraid or embarrassed to file for a review themselves, he added.
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