Nearly 80 percent of the public prefer a lay judge system over a jury system, a survey conducted by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) showed.
The DPP has come under fire for not including a proposed jury system on the agenda for legislative talks on judicial reform, despite the party’s charter calling for a jury system. It has instead pushed for a lay judge system, which was initially proposed by the Judicial Yuan.
Although the Judicial Yuan has called the proposed bill the “citizen participation in criminal trial procedures act,” the DPP caucus proposed naming it the “national judge act,” removing words such as “participation,” which it says might not fit the final language of the bill.
Photo: Su Fun-her, Taipei Times
The survey, released on Sunday, showed that 78.2 percent of respondents support a “national judge system,” while only 19.2 percent support a jury system.
The poll also showed that 72.2 percent agree with President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) push to have members of the public take part in trials, while 19.3 percent said they disagree.
The survey showed that, on the basis that in a national judge system, the judges would be required to justify their rulings, and fact-finding can be appealed, whereas in a jury system the jury does not have to state reasons for their ruling nor can fact-finding be appealed, 80 percent said they support a national judge system, while 14.7 percent said they support a jury system.
The majority, or 56.7 percent, also disagree that lay judges would have too much authority, while 36.8 percent agree that they would have too much authority, the survey showed.
Asked if they agree that juries might be a waste of resources because they have to be disbanded and a new jury formed when members could not reach a consensus, 74.4 percent of respondents said yes, while 21.5 percent said no.
On Sunday, the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice each issued a statement saying that the proposed national judge system was the most suitable of the two options for the nation, and urged the government not to implement both at the same time.
The national judge system represented an “evolution of the jury system,” the statement said.
Transplanting the jury system used in the US or the UK into Taiwan’s judiciary would create a human rights crisis for Taiwanese, it said.
The New Power Party, in support of a proposal by the Judicial Reform Foundation, yesterday submitted a motion at a cross-party caucus meeting calling for the implementation of a jury system in parallel with a lay judge system.
Opposing the motion, Saber Youth (劍青檢改) — a judicial independence advocacy group composed of young prosecutors — urged the DPP not to concurrently implement both systems, saying that doing so would result in a “judicial monster.”
The proposed lay judge system was formulated after four years of discussions involving judges and prosecutors, and looking at examples in Japan, the group said.
They had conducted 86 trial runs in mock court sessions and gathered a large amount of information in the process, it added.
The survey was conducted from Wednesday to Friday last week and collected 911 valid samples. It has a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.
Additional reporting by Chen Wei-tzu and Wen Yu-te
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique