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Control Yuan moves to extend probe into judges, prosecutors

The Control Yuan decided yesterday to extend its investigation into judges and prosecutors to enable it to punish those found making illogical verdicts and unwarranted decisions not to prosecute.

The move represents a departure from the watchdog body's custom of impeaching judges and prosecutors only for improper conduct involving personal morality and breaches of discipline.

"Many results of judicial cases have shown that judges make verdicts without strict logical reasoning. Many cases indicate that judges may announce verdicts in abuse of their prerogative to decide," said Chang Te-ming (張德銘), a Control Yuan member from the task force.

A six-member Control Yuan task force conducted an investigation for nearly a year into judges' verdicts.

The report, released yesterday, concluded that the Control Yuan will intervene to review verdicts that caused great controversies to see whether judges abused their powers. Those found to have abused their powers will be impeached.

The task force conducted a survey last year to find out how the public felt about the judicial system. The result showed that around 53 percent of interviewees felt that verdicts made by judges are not fair, while 59 percent of those who had gone to trial felt that trial was conducted without full debate.

"The negative impression from the public about the judicial system showed that the public doesn't trust our judges. And the reason behind this is their abusing their free will to believe some evidence and dismiss other evidence without convincing reasons," said Lee Shen-yi (李伸一), another task-force member.

In their report, Control Yuan members said that although regulations ask judges to clearly state their reasons for decisions on admitting testimony and evidence, "many judges did not follow the standard procedure and simply said some evidence is inadmissible without giving reasons."

Asked whether such moves will interfere with the independence of trials, Chang said a consensus reached among Control Yuan members indicated that such reviews and investigations will only be conducted after verdicts are announced.

"We made the decision because the judicial system is obviously lacking self-reflection. Interference from outside forces might be able to help them to improve," Lee said.
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