On Jan. 9, Taiwan's Judicial Yuan made the controversial decision to reinstate a senior judge to the Kinmen Court of Appeal. This decision upset many who had heard about the character of the judge in question. He was reprimanded three years ago for inappropriate conduct. The record also reveals that he had intimate relations with a female manager of an illegal disco in Kaoshung City, advised a local gang leader to commit perjury and publicly lashed out at Control Yuan members who investigated his wrongdoings.
After serving the administrative punishment of three-year's leave without pay, this guy comes back and applies, as the law entitles him to do, for reinstatement. Under current law, the Judicial Yuan has no choice but to reinstate him as a senior judge. So the Judicial Yuan decides to put him in a remote rural area, which is rarely in the media spotlight and where he is barely known by the locals.
In terms of damage control, this is quite a move for the Judicial Yuan, for which it deserves some credit. Kinmen is a tiny island with a population of less than 30,000. Significantly less litigation, be it criminal or civil, is undertaken there than in the rest of Taiwan. That being so, the vast majority of people have little prospect of facing this notorious judge in the foreseeable future.
We must ask, however, why the judicial branch allows a black sheep to be brought back into the judicial fold. Like Rome, Taiwanese law was not built in a day. When the bad judge was reprimanded, the Judicial Yuan had plenty of time to ask for an amendment to the law to remove him and other bad judicial apples from the bench for good. During the past three years, however, it has made no such proposal. It thought the black sheep would voluntarily leave the flock. Unfortunately it overestimated the ethics and moral standards of the bad guys. Legislative idleness thus brought an unwanted consequence -- reinstatement of a bad judge -- that casts a dark cloud over what should be the impeccable ethics of the judiciary.
Now, by assigning the judge to an offshore island, the Judicial Yuan is sending another signal of encouragement to the bad elements within the judiciary. While the majority of judicial officials feel frustrated and ashamed at having to work with the reprimanded judge, some judges may feel more confident about their job security, despite poor performance or controversial behavior in public or in private. If actions speak louder than words, the Judicial Yuan's action reads, "If you have been reprimanded, you will enjoy the same high pay and benefits as your peers but a much lower workload." This is not only unfair to the good judges but also to the citizens in the bad judges' jurisdiction. Few participants in the judicial process, whether plaintiffs or defendants, will trust the bad judges' integrity and professionalism, let alone their verdicts. Indeed, the presence of such judges in their jurisdiction will make the local people feel like second-class citizens.
The pressing matter on the agenda of the Judicial Yuan is to ask the Legislative Yuan to amend the law to remove all reprimanded judges from the bench immediately. This will not only ensure that troublemakers are lawfully removed from the judiciary, but also have the psychological effect of restoring public trust in the judiciary.
In the interim, the Judicial Yuan should consider ways to keep bad judges at bay. One possible tactic would be to reassign them to work as legal counsel in the office of the president of the Judicial Yuan. This would ensure that they keep their hands off the judicial process while enabling the Judicial Yuan to keep a close eye on them.
Judges are the guardian angels due process. We cannot afford to have black sheep play that sacred role.
Ernie Ko is the editor-in-chief of the Yuda Times.
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