The tragic death of a judge who fell from a building on April 12 accentuated the issue of long-term overtime work endangering the mental and physical health of judicial officials.
Many have advocated for an increase in personnel or adjustments in case distribution to relieve the overworked judicial system, but the problem cannot be solved without evidence-based measures.
The problem with the overworked judicial system is not just that it is short-staffed, but also a systematic problem of how to allocate judicial resources appropriately.
Aside from Taiwan, many other countries are facing the same challenges.
Indicator 16.3 of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promotes “the rule of law at the national and international levels, and ensures equal access to justice for all,” encouraging the globe to conduct scientific empirical investigation and thorough understanding of the actual judicial needs of the public.
For this, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development collaborated with Pathfinders and published a policy paper last year titled “Improving the monitoring of SDG 16.3.3: Towards better access to justice,” to promote an international standard for access to justice.
The Legal Australia-Wide Survey: Legal need in Australia in 2012 states that the legal problems raised by 9 percent of interviewees accounted for 65 percent of the total, highlighting the centralization of access to justice.
In addition, about one-third of Australians would encounter at least one legal issue within two years, with common disputes tied to consumerism, neighborhoods or money.
Regarding vulnerable groups who need increased access to justice, the Australian government offered administrative resources and alternative dispute resolutions (ADR) to effectively ease the burden on the judicial system.
Additionally, the Canadian Legal Problems Survey conducted in 2021 revealed the same problem.
About 50 percent of Canadians were involved in legal disputes, most of which were domestic, consumer or neighborhood disputes.
Thus, the Canadian government successfully reduced the number of judicial cases by optimizing their ADR and providing legal services in communities.
Learning from international experiences, to cope with simple and common cases in high demand, increasing personnel in the administration would be more effective than adding personnel to the judicial system.
I hope president-elect William Lai (賴清德) will fulfill his commitment to establish a standing committee on judicial reform in charge of an empirical judicial inquiry, increase the number of administrative officials and loosen the overworked judicial system to achieve sustainable development goals for the country.
Hsiao Yi-ming is resource development manager of the Judicial Reform Foundation.
Translated by Chien Yan-ru
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
Most schoolchildren learn that the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000km. They do not learn that the global economy depends on just 160 of those kilometers. Blocking two narrow waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Taiwan Strait — could send the economy back in time, if not to the Stone Age that US President Donald Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran back to, then at least to the mid-20th century, before the Rolling Stones first hit the airwaves. Over the past month and a half, Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 39km wide at
The ongoing Middle East crisis has reinforced an uncomfortable truth for Taiwan: In an increasingly interconnected and volatile world, distant wars rarely remain distant. What began as a regional confrontation between the US, Israel and Iran has evolved into a strategic shock wave reverberating far beyond the Persian Gulf. For Taiwan, the consequences are immediate, material and deeply unsettling. From Taipei’s perspective, the conflict has exposed two vulnerabilities — Taiwan’s dependence on imported energy and the risks created when Washington’s military attention is diverted. Together, they offer a preview of the pressures Taiwan might increasingly face in an era of overlapping geopolitical
There is a peculiar kind of political theater unfolding in East Asia — one that would be laughable if its consequences were not so dangerous. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) on April 12 returned from Beijing, where she met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and spoke earnestly about preserving “peace” and maintaining the “status quo.” It is a position that sounds responsible, even prudent. It is also a fiction. Taiwan is, by any honest definition, an independent country. It governs itself, defends itself, elects its leaders, and functions as a free and sovereign democracy. Independence is not a
RSS