President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday pledged to continue working on judicial reform in a steady manner, while promising not to interfere in individual cases.
In a meeting with members of the Action Alliance of Justices to Elect the Supreme Court Chief Justice, a judicial reform group drawn from serving judges, Ma said reform of the judicial system would not be achieved by holding conferences or passing regulations. Practical details, including the attitude of judges, would affect people’s feelings and trust in the system.
“My judicial reform will not only focus on fundamental aspects. We will also aim to improve the system at a practical level, including the public’s perception of the system,” he said.
Ma said he had kept his promise to never interfere in individual cases, adding that he had also stopped the practice of illegal wiretapping, but that there was still room for improvement in the judiciary and the government’s current reforms are a first step. He said future reforms would require gradual pressure to ensure implementation.
“Reform of the judicial system should proceed at a steady pace and I think judges are exercising more self-restraint ... As president, I will keep my promise not to interfer in individual cases,” he said.
In response to the alliance’s call for a change in the system that would allow judges to elect the president of the Supreme Court, Ma said the appointment should follow the regulations on judicial personnel.
“Judges and other members of the judicial system should be independent, but not isolated. It’s a good sign that judges are concerned about the issue and I will take advice from the alliance about the appointment into consideration and find a proper candidate,” he said.
Calls for reform of the system of appointing the Supreme Court president emerged recently after the Supreme Court was heavily criticized for a number of recent rulings.
The Supreme Court justices’ ruling that the lower courts should investigate to see if the child victim of an alleged sexual assault had “consented” to the act triggered a “white rose” protest movement against the justices, sparking criticism that the Supreme Court justices are completely out of touch with reality.
The alliance reiterated its call for an election of the Supreme Court president as the incumbent, Yang Jen-shou (楊仁壽), is scheduled to retire from the post next Friday.
Ma agreed that the president of the Supreme Court should not only be a role model for all judges, but also be able to respond to public concerns and social values when making judgements.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching