After the newly amended Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) came into effect on Monday, PFP lawmakers and professors yesterday suggested a "Legal Assistance Law" (法律扶助法) to assure that poor citizens' legal rights will be well protected.
The new law was suggested at a public meeting at the Legislative Yuan headed by PFP Legislator Cheng San-yuan (
He urged his colleagues to support his idea to propose a "Legal Assistance Law" and to tailor it to the new Code of Criminal Procedure, so that the legal system can really protect the human and legal rights of both the rich and poor.
"If we do not do something, the newly amended Code of Criminal Procedure will not be able to protect poor people's legal rights, because poor people will not be able to afford the increased legal fees and lawyer's fees for a suit anymore," Cheng said.
Cheng's "Legal Assistance Law" aims to provide free legal services to poor people. They would be assigned lawyers who will receive a wage from a government fund.
At the time of going to press yesterday, Cheng had not officially proposed the idea.
Courts assign public defense counsel to people who cannot afford lawyers. These lawyers offer their services on a volunteer basis.
According to the new Code of Criminal Procedure, prosecutors will be required to attend every pre-trial hearing to question the defendant in an attempt to prove his or her guilt using evidence they gathered there.
This used to be the duty of the judge. Judges will now have to consider their verdicts according to the evidence and interrogation records presented by prosecutors during the hearings.
Under the amendment, judges will only have to preside over the case, which, according to Judicial Yuan President Weng Yueh-sheng (翁岳生), not only makes judges' jobs easier, enabling them to hear more cases within a certain time period, but also ensures that every case is heard according to court rules.
Cheng Peng-chi (鄭鵬基), secretary-general of the Legal Service Association, said fewer lawyers are volunteering to defend people.
"I am afraid that this phenomenon will go from bad to worse," Cheng said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods