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
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