Hsinchu judges valued highly in poll of lawyers

Eighteen Hsinchu District Court judges were singled out for praise yesterday as the Judicial Reform Foundation (民間司法改革基金會) released its annual survey of the bench at a press conference at the Taiwan Bar Association.

Lawyers in six cities evaluated 847 judges, selected at random, for their work between November last year to October this year..

The judges were from the district courts in Taipei, Shihlin, Panchiao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Taichung, and Kaohsiung; the Taiwan High Court and the high court's branches in Taichung and Kaohsiung.

The 18 Hsinchu judges were rated as "trustworthy" by the highest proportion of respondents -- 89.92 percent. Judge Su Chia-feng (蘇嘉豐) lead the list by virtue of his higher rating in the "attitude" category.

The Taiwan High Court didn't farewell, placing last with 56.94 percent.

Six judges were rated as "poor performers" -- Hou Shui-shan (侯水深) and Chung Hua (鍾華) in Taipei, Lee Chao-jung (李昭融) in Panchiao, Lin Chih-cheng (林誌誠) in Miaoli and Chen Bing-chang (陳炳彰) and Lan Wen-hsiang (藍文祥) of the Taiwan High Court.

More than 12,000 laywers took part in the mail-in survey.