With organized crime penetrating deep into Taiwan society, law-enforcement agencies hope the recently-passed Witness Protection Law (
The Witness Protection Law was passed by the Legislative Yuan last week, along with several other bills.
The new law is aimed at cracking down on highly sensitive crimes, such as corruption and organized crime. It grants witnesses special treatment during legal proceedings, and also offers the chance of sentence reduction for witnesses who decide to testify against themselves and their accomplices.
"It's going to be law enforcement agencies' most effective weapon in combating crimes involving underworld gangs and corruption," said Justice Minister Yeh Chin-fong (
Under the new law, both judges and prosecutors have the discretion to issue a protection order to ensure the safety of the witnesses for specific types of offenses, such as underworld crime, money laundering, election bribery, or official corruption.
The law stipulates that any records concerning the witnesses must be kept confidential and special measures must be taken during trials to prevent the witnesses from being identified.
In the face of any personal danger, the witnesses, as well as their families, can be placed under police guard. The government will be able to provide, if necessary, support for witnesses who might need to change their residence or job to avoid revenge attacks.
Prior to passage of the law, a grey area existed where law enforcement officials offered rewards to members of crime organizations in exchange for tips on criminal activities.
The use of insiders can help combat organized crime, but has led to some abuses. As such there have been calls for a legal framework to be set up to regulate the boundaries for using informants, since informants are widely used by police in tracking down organized crime.
Tsai Pi-yu (
But Tsai also noted that efforts are now underway to draft a law to regulate the practice of using undercover cops.
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