The Judicial Yuan yesterday said it has proposed amendments to the Court Organization Act (法院組織法) and other laws in a bid to hire more judicial staff and tackle the issue of overwork.
Case numbers have risen significantly in the past few years, which has led to judges, clerks and other staff being overworked, the Judicial Yuan said.
A judge fell to his death from a building, a judge fell into a coma in his office and a clerk passed away from illness, it said, citing what it called cases linked to overwork.
Photo: Yang Kuo-wen, Taipei Times
To meet its personnel needs and process outstanding cases, 5,536 new staff would need to be hired, it said.
“We hope the Executive Yuan’s Directorate-General of Personnel Administration can recognize the urgent need for additional judiciary staff,” it said, adding that it hoped the Act Governing the Total Number of Personnel Headcounts of Central Government Agencies (行政院人事行政總處) could be amended to allow more hiring.
A Judicial Yuan report said that the number of annual cases received by local courts over the past decade grew by 28 percent from 2.84 million in 2014 to 3.63 million last year.
The number of open cases also rose, increasing from 187,635 in 2014 to 367,171 last year, or 96 percent, the report said.
Although measures have been implemented to reduce the burden on the court system, it was still unable to keep up with the growth in case numbers, it said.
The law stipulates that the Judicial Yuan and its agencies combined are allowed a maximum of 15,000 staff members.
The agencies budgeted for 14,508 staff members this year, but an additional 5,536 would be needed to clear open cases, the Judicial Yuan said.
The Legislative Yuan’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday met with Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Wu San-lung (吳三龍) and cross-party legislators.
The committee asked Wu to prepare a report on how the burden on the court system could be reduced through “administrative simplification, litigation reduction and the application of technology.”
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus secretary-general Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) echoed calls for an increase in judicial hirings, and called for better treatment of judicial personnel and the implementation of a dispute pyramid, which would see more issues settled outside of court.
DPP Legislator Chen Chun-yu (陳俊宇) asked Wu what a reasonable caseload would be for the judiciary.
Wu said that he would discuss the issue with judicial staff.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) also called for increased hiring of judicial staff and said he had drafted an amendment on the issue.
Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said that the Judges’ Association of the Republic of China had already issued a statement asking the Judicial Yuan to tackle the staff shortage issue and to respond to it with a proposal within one month.
Wu said he would do his best to respond to the association within that time.
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