On March 20, the Control Yuan impeached Taoyuan District Court judge He Yu-chen (何宇宸) for threatening an accused with detention to obtain a confession and acting as his wife’s advocate in a separate lawsuit in contravention of the Judges Act (法官法).
Although the impeachment still needs to be adjudicated by the Court of the Judiciary, the investigation process has shown that the elimination system established by the act is difficult to put into practice.
After 20 years of deliberation, the act was finally passed by the Legislative Yuan on June 14, 2011, and it took effect a year later.
An important mechanism created by the act is the Judicial Evaluation Committee, which serves as the first and most important stage for the elimination of incompetent judges by external committee members.
According to Paragraph 1, Article 33 of the act, the committee “shall be composed of three judges, one prosecutor, three attorneys, as well as four scholars and societal representatives.”
Formally, seven of the 11 members are law professionals, so it is questionable whether the committee can be seen as “external in nature.”
The He impeachment is a case in point. It was the Judicial Reform Foundation that submitted the petition asking the committee for an evaluation. However, the committee did not seem to find anything seriously wrong with He threatening the accused with detention.
After He admitted fault, the committee did not forward the petition to the Control Yuan, but to the Judicial Yuan’s Judicial Personnel Review Committee, which is merely self-regulatory.
At this point, the Judicial Personnel Review Committee found that He was also at fault for acting as his wife’s advocate and forwarded the petition to the Control Yuan.
This raises an important question: To what end was the Judicial Evaluation Committee established?
Last year’s amendment to the first paragraph of Article 33 — which is to take effect in July — will increase the number of societal representatives in the evaluation committee from four to six, still less than half of the committee.
Subparagraph 4, Paragraph 1, Article 34 stipulates that “scholars and societal representatives are appointed by the president of the Judicial Yuan, with nomination by the Ministry of Justice and the national bar association.”
How much more external the amendment would make the committee is even more questionable.
A similar problem appears in the composition of the Court of the Judiciary, which holds the power to issue final rulings.
According to Paragraph 1, Article 48 of the act, the court “shall be conducted by a panel with the chief commissioner of the Public Functionary Disciplinary Sanction Commission as the division chief judge and four judges as associate judges.”
All five panel members are judges. No matter how far they can distance themselves from the accused, the public will always suspect that they are shielding each another. Due to these concerns, perhaps, last year’s amendment stipulates that the court panel should also comprise external members.
Although there will be two external members on the panel, they will not have a substantial effect, because the adjudication is made by majority vote. More importantly, external members are “scholars and societal representatives” recommended by the Judicial Selection Committee and commissioned by the Judicial Yuan president.
Only time will tell whether the external members will be able to fully play their roles in weeding out incompetent judges or be merely ornamental.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate law professor at Aletheia University.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
Taiwan’s fall would be “a disaster for American interests,” US President Donald Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy Elbridge Colby said at his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday last week, as he warned of the “dramatic deterioration of military balance” in the western Pacific. The Republic of China (Taiwan) is indeed facing a unique and acute threat from the Chinese Communist Party’s rising military adventurism, which is why Taiwan has been bolstering its defenses. As US Senator Tom Cotton rightly pointed out in the same hearing, “[although] Taiwan’s defense spending is still inadequate ... [it] has been trending upwards
Small and medium enterprises make up the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, yet large corporations such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) play a crucial role in shaping its industrial structure, economic development and global standing. The company reported a record net profit of NT$374.68 billion (US$11.41 billion) for the fourth quarter last year, a 57 percent year-on-year increase, with revenue reaching NT$868.46 billion, a 39 percent increase. Taiwan’s GDP last year was about NT$24.62 trillion, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, meaning TSMC’s quarterly revenue alone accounted for about 3.5 percent of Taiwan’s GDP last year, with the company’s
There is nothing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) could do to stop the tsunami-like mass recall campaign. KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) reportedly said the party does not exclude the option of conditionally proposing a no-confidence vote against the premier, which the party later denied. Did an “actuary” like Chu finally come around to thinking it should get tough with the ruling party? The KMT says the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is leading a minority government with only a 40 percent share of the vote. It has said that the DPP is out of touch with the electorate, has proposed a bloated
In an eloquently written piece published on Sunday, French-Taiwanese education and policy consultant Ninon Godefroy presents an interesting take on the Taiwanese character, as viewed from the eyes of an — at least partial — outsider. She muses that the non-assuming and quiet efficiency of a particularly Taiwanese approach to life and work is behind the global success stories of two very different Taiwanese institutions: Din Tai Fung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). Godefroy said that it is this “humble” approach that endears the nation to visitors, over and above any big ticket attractions that other countries may have
RSS