Mon, May 29, 2023 page8

• Let open courts bring public justice

  • By Curtis Smith
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  Tien Feng-wen (田豐文) should be thanked for his letter, “Disciplining corrupt judges,” published in the Taipei Times on May 24. Tien outlined how the Disciplinary Court demoted two judges and urged this supervisory court to promote higher standards and battle judicial misconduct.

  This is good, but ongoing reform of the judicial system is taking decades. As everyone grows old waiting, a new approach could be used to bypass the huge factions and infighting that continually hinder change.

  The Legislative Yuan and the Ministry of Justice could amend laws to enhance free speech by building on the principle that laws in a democracy belong to the public, and therefore the public should have access to the courts.

  In the West, a janitor, courier, or housewife can go into a courtroom and take in the proceedings during a lunch break. Journalists in the West use this right to report back to people who choose not to exercise their right to attend the courts.

  That is why most people in the West grew up reading newspaper columns such as “In the Courts” — perhaps it was in the Toronto Star — that gave juicy court accounts of crimes and disputes. These well-written pieces made law easy and fun, and were full of interesting quotes from the plaintiff, the accused and the judge, in banter that ended with a verdict.

  Every day, several mini reports helped people trace arguments and evidence as they sat back and thought about the case, and how they might have given a different verdict if they were the judge — or how it would feel to be the guilty person.

  This spirit is missing from Taiwan’s system — built upon a feudal Bismarck system of the propertied and noble that alienated Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. In contrast with the West, Taiwan offers a living museum, a tyrannical army of dinosaur judges with egos larger than Australia.

  In their sealed courtrooms, the prosecutors and judges do what they like without the threat of a prying journalist scribbling down their outlandish remarks as they shun evidence that might shed light on justice. A good journalist with support could expose and end this self-serving culture through their observations.

  I have watched how a prosecutor can fiddle the court record to develop their version of reality.

  When I was giving a statement at Xinyi Police Station on an assault case, an employee of a security company I was charging told me in front of the recording police officer: “You won’t win. We have people inside the courts.”

  The police ignored this warning. Maybe most Taiwanese distrust judges because of the condescending attitude many judges hold toward ordinary people, who are often victims of the authorities.

  I have never seen the public in the courts, and the media come only for celebrity hearings. Unlike in the West, the “privacy rights” of gangsters and scoundrels come before identifying evil to the public.

  However, in the West, everyone in a case — including the judge — can assume that they would be quoted and named in the media.

  Of course, most judges would oppose opening their sanctuaries to the media and public, as the greater punishment for them would be the public wrath attached to their names. They are currently only reported as “the judge.”

  The opening of the courts to the public and media would advance democracy. Laws and new protocols must be made to protect journalists vulnerable to court contempt and libel laws, journalism schools should open court courses and visits to train scribes with the skills of the court beat, and the media should be in the courts daily with an eye on judges and a grip on the law.

  Curtis Smith is founder of the Union of TAITRA Workers.
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