Judges, legal clerks and court officials have all improved their performance over the past seven years, but there remains plenty of room for improvement, the Judicial Reform Foundation (民間司法改革基金會) said yesterday.
The foundation lauded judges in particular for what it said was a marked improvement in their attitudes over the last year, in stark contrast with the situation when the group's surveys first began.
"Seven years ago," said Sue Wang, (
"We have to understand that most plaintiffs and defendants are not legal experts. Judges should understand that, too. We are very glad to see that most judges now understand that and have changed their attitudes," Wang said.
The foundation's observers, however, had also identified five problems which they say still need to be addressed.
"In contrast to US courts," said Wang, "in Taiwan, according to the law, a defendant who has not hired a lawyer will not be assigned one by the court unless the maximum sentence he faces is three years or more."
Court translation is another area where the group says there is room for improvement. Many observers have indicated that translators are often unqualified. "Some of them even have problems speaking Taiwanese or Hakka, not to mention English, which should be basic requirements for a translator," Wang said.
"In many cases, judges can speak these local dialects better than the translators," she said.
"A translator's job is as important as a judge's," said Karl Tzan (
"Apart from our own local dialects, there are more and more foreign languages spoken in Taiwan. We cannot ask our translators to be able to speak all of the dialects. But they should be able to use English, the universal language, in order to provide the most basic level of service."
He added that, "Unfortunately, more often than not, a translator is someone who just carries documents back and forth between the judge and the parties to the case. That's a waste of human resources.
"Another big problem is our judges' limited knowledge of business," Wang said. "The Judicial Yuan is working on the problem as well and it has been recommended that judges make use of business professionals to attend court hearings and advise judges on issues they are not familiar with."
An area that both Wang and Tzan said needs immediate attention is law clerks' lax attitude to the timely filing of case reports.
"Law clerks are still the people who write the case reports," Wang said. "But the speed with which they finish these reports is a major problems. The timeliness of the reports affects the efficiency of court hearings. More than a few observers have noted that the clerks often are not good typists.
"It is OK that not all of our clerks can type fast," Tzan said. "But, we do need to hire people who can type quickly and accurately so that clerks can focus on their main task, which is to assist the judge during court hearings.
"We began sending court observers to courts island-wide seven years ago," Wang said. "These observers observe court sessions, take notes about the judge's attitude, the efficiency of the clerks' work, etc. After completing our survey, we have released an annual report on the judicial system's performance to keep public informed."
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