All court proceedings should be broadcast live and recorded, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said yesterday, promising to propose amendments to the Organic Act of Court Organization (法院組織法).
“Recent cases in which live broadcasting was allowed deserve commendation, but courts should not be allowed to cherry-pick which case to broadcast,” Hsu told a news conference, adding that judges and prosecutors should be required to allow recording in courtrooms.
The Supreme Court recently allowed a limited live broadcast of Aboriginal hunter Wang Kuang-lu’s (王光祿) trial, while the Council of Grand Justices has announced that it is to broadcast next month’s debate over the constitutionality of marriage equality.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
However, the broadcasts have been spotty and limited to controversial or well-publicized cases, with provisions of the act stating that courtroom recording may only proceed with approval from the presiding judge, who also has the authority to demand their erasure.
“The provisions illegitimately allow judges to avoid public scrutiny and supervision,” Hsu said. “In particular, all constitutional debates should be publicly broadcast because they are absolutely a matter of public interest and people care about them.”
While the large number of cases processed by the legal system might rule out universal direct broadcasts, broadcasting should still be open “in principle,” Soochow University associate law professor Hu Po-yen (胡博硯) said.
“A lot of judges are not willing to let the public see what the judicial review process looks like, but this is an illegitimate concern: Courts are already open to people who want to listen in, and people should have a right to first-hand information,” he said.
“Because organic act provisions do not rule out broadcasting, the Judicial Yuan could address this issue on its own, but legal revisions are necessary because it clearly does not plan on facing the issue,” Hu added.
The Judicial Yuan declined to send a representative to Hsu’s news conference, Hsu said, adding that it had also declined to say when and whether it would implement an official policy.
“Providing complete direct broadcasting of all cases would not be difficult given that all prosecutors’ offices and local courts have their own technical support offices,” said Kao Hung-ming (高宏銘), founder of Follaw, a legal advocacy group.
While all court cases are theoretically open to auditing, there is often a shortage of seats in important and controversial cases, he said, adding that opening all cases to broadcasting would increase trust in the legal system.
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