Media relations with prosecutors seen changing

The way crime is reported by the press is undergoing a significant change as secrecy of criminal investigations is increasingly enforced, a change that is widely regarded as a step forward in the protection of human rights.

The Ministry of Justice recently ordered prosecution departments nationwide to ban prosecutors from releasing information about cases they are investigating.

The order also restricts journalists' access to sources. It says that journalists should be denied entry to the offices of prosecutors.

By seeking to curtail long-standing media practices, the order has caused inconvenience to media reporters covering judicial and crime beats, but has so far not brought about much opposition.

The order is based on a supplementary resolution made by lawmakers to an amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) passed by the legislature in July. But the resolution was widely ignored until the justice ministry reinforced it by way of its order a week ago.

The concern of the legal amendment and the supplementary resolution was to reaffirm the principle of secrecy in investigations, as stipulated in Article 245 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

At the time of the proposal, legislators who initiated the amendment said the original clause failed to follow the principle of the presumption of innocence and failed to protect criminal suspects' rights.

Previously it was common for prosecutors or police officers to take news reporters with them when searching places and people suspected of involvement in crimes.

It was also common for police to put arrested suspects in front of TV cameras along with material evidence and a banner displaying their names and charges.

In recent years, these practices have come under fire as "media convictions" of the suspects.

It was also a common criticism that prosecutors, police or investigators released too much confidential information to the press and thus risked jeopardizing further investigations.

As far as secrecy of criminal investigations is concerned, the original Code of Criminal Procedure stipulated only that a suspect's lawyer must not disclose information gleaned in the course of their duties in connection with a case.

The amendment, however, additionally obliges prosecutors, police officers, investigators and any other officials involved in an investigation to preserve the secrecy of the case, except in the "public interest" and in that of "legal rights," terms which the amendment does not define.

In order to ensure adherence to the law, the supplementary resolution passed at the same time requires criminal investigative departments to limit media reporters' access to investigative officials' offices.

The supplementary resolution demands that information regarding matters under investigation only be released to the media by official spokespersons.

After the Ministry of Justice last week demanded that all prosecution departments adhere to the new regulations, interaction between prosecutors and reporters has changed considerably.

At the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office, all prosecutors' offices are closed. Although reporters are not absolutely barred from prosecutors' offices, the prosecutors are much more reluctant than they used to be to speak to reporters about their cases.

Reporters do complain about this new limitation on their access to information, but both the press and prosecutors are seeking to establish the nature of future practices under the new rules, while their impact remains to be seen.