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Legal row continues in judge's defamation case

Court proceedings resumed yesterday in an unprecedented case, in which a Taiwan High Court judge is suing two lawyers for awarding him failing grades in a judicial evaluation in 1998.

The trial, which began in March last year, had been adjourned for nearly 19 months as a result of constitutional disputes over the defamation law.

Taiwan High Court Judge Yang Kuei-chih (楊貴志), who filed the suit after being panned in a 1998 evaluation conducted by the Taipei Bar Association and the Judicial Reform Foundation, did not attend the hearing at the Taipei District Court yesterday.

Instead, his lawyer spoke on his behalf and insisted the two lawyers -- Kao Jui-cheng (高瑞錚) and Joseph Lin (林永頌) -- had damaged Yang's reputation by releasing results of the evaluation to the media in November 1998.

At the time Kao and Lin served as director-general and executive-general of the Judicial Reform Foundation respectively.

Undeterred by the lawsuit, the two lawyers remained unapologetic yesterday and insisted that their actions were protected under the constitutional right to freedom of expression.

The defendants argued that the evaluation -- assessments of judges by 2,300 practicing lawyers -- was a collective expression of opinion. Expression of opinion does not constitute the offence of libel while distortion of facts does, they argued.

Since 1991, the two organizations have annually conducted judicial evaluations by requesting members of the Taipei bar to assess Taipei's district court and high court judges in written questionnaires. The results of the evaluation are based on the respondents' assessments of the judges on two issues: quality of work and moral character.

In the 1998 evaluation, Yang, along with another five judges, scored lower than a bottom line of 60. Furious with the release of the evaluation to the media, the high court judge filed the libel suit against the two lawyers in February last year.

Both Kao and Lin insisted yesterday that the judicial evaluation was not meant to attack any specific judge, but that it was a necessary mechanism to press for reform in the judicial system.

"Were all the judges good judges, we wouldn't have bothered doing the evaluations. But the fact is that here in Taiwan we have both hardworking judges and those who are lazy and corrupt judges -- some of whom even smell of alcohol while presiding over trials," Lin said.

"By doing the evaluations, we hope to internally reform the system. And we're not going to concede even though an anti-reform judge wants to deter us by means of lawsuits," Lin added.

Following the libel suit filed by Yang, the two lawyers filed a countersuit against the high court judge.

As Yang has not attended any of the court sessions in person since the trial began, the two lawyers condemned the judge for disregarding the legal system and suggested the trial judge apprehend him.

After three court sessions -- between March and May last year -- the judge presiding at the time ordered an adjournment of the trial and requested a constitutional interpretation of the defamation law from the Council of Grand Justices.

Though there have been calls for the decriminalization of defamation, the council ruled in July this year that the defamation law does not intrude on freedom of expression. The council nevertheless established that libel defendants are entitled to privilege against self-incrimination and that the burden of proof rests on the suing party.

The council's interpretation does not save them from the suit, but it is still a relief to the two lawyers as now the onus is on the high court judge and his lawyer to prove the defendants acted maliciously in releasing the evaluation in question to media.

"The interpretation turns out to be very unfavorable for us," admitted Yang's lawyer, Chen Shih-yung (陳適庸).
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