The Judicial Yuan’s draft amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) and the Implementation Rules of the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法施行法) were approved yesterday by the Executive Yuan.
The proposed amendments, under which 107 articles would be added or amended, are part of the government’s judicial reform efforts.
The main purpose of the proposed amendments is to improve overall trial efficiency, said Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who presided over the Cabinet meeting.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
Su said that he asked the Ministry of Justice to communicate and coordinate with the Judicial Yuan and the legislature to ensure passage of the proposals.
The requirements for filing appeals for second and third trials are relatively loose, which is why there are many appeals and the current system has been described as a “cylindrical” structure, Minister Without Portfolio Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said.
During the National Conference on Judicial Reform in 2017, officials decided to amend the two bills to reduce the number of appeals and turn the criminal procedure system into a “pyramid” structure, he said.
With “speedy trials for obvious cases and careful judgement of unsolved cases” as its core belief, the Judicial Yuan wants to expand the number of cases that require defendants to have defense attorneys, as well as divide cases into two categories, officials said.
The Judicial Yuan has said it has five major objectives with the criminal law proposals.
They are: To adopt a division in criminal procedure in which “obvious cases” and “unsolved cases” are separated; to improve the ability of the first trial to judge the facts of a case; to have the second trial be both a review of a case and a continuation of the first trial; to have the third trial strictly address questions of law and cases that were permitted an appeal; and to strengthen the protection of the defendant’s right to the assistance of counsel, the officials said.
The Judicial Yuan, the ministry and attorney organizations took part in multiple meetings convened by Lo to review and advise on the proposals, they said.
The Executive Yuan generally supports and respects the reform idea behind the proposals, but advised a careful and stable path to reform, the officials said.
Under the current judicial framework, amendments should be made to address the issues that are encountered in practice to protect the people’s rights as well as maintain the criminal procedure structure, they said.
The Executive Yuan asked the Judicial Yuan to carefully consider whether to make drastic amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure to restrict the range of appeal under the current law, they said.
After evaluating the protection of the litigants’ right to a lawsuit and the systemic function of the second and third trials, the Executive Yuan would provide the legislature and the Judicial Yuan with counterproposals and suggestions, the officials said.
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