The Judicial Yuan on Saturday presented its position on a bill to allow citizens to participate in deciding criminal trials, listing 10 reasons against the implementation of a jury system.
In a document submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of a committee hearing scheduled for today, the Judicial Yuan said that it favors Japan’s system of citizen participation rather than a jury system.
Compared with jury systems in many Western countries, in which jurors give verdicts, but are not involved in sentencing, Japan randomly selects six people to be lay judges who sit alongside three court judges and help decide verdicts and sentences.
The Japanese system allows better communication and interaction between citizens and court judges, and negates “hung juries,” which can lengthen trials, the Judicial Yuan said.
Allowing citizens a role in sentencing also meets public expectations, it said.
Other reasons that it gave against a jury system were that a jury does not need to give reasons for a verdict, which contradicts the Constitution regarding people’s rights in the trial and appeals process.
The Judicial Yuan also cited the cost of forming a jury and said that allowing a jury to hand out verdicts might contradict Constitutional Court Interpretation No. 378, which defines what constitutes a court.
Nations such as Japan and France, which previously used a jury system, are shifting to the lay judge model, it said, while criticizing the jury system in the US.
Surveys conducted by the Taiwan Database for Empirical Legal Studies and National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center, as well as opinions collected through mock trials over the past few years, show that most people favor the lay judge model, it said.
Legislators at a committee hearing this month said that the proposal, which was presented by the Cabinet and the Judicial Yuan, would limit the participation of citizens in criminal trials to an estimated 600 cases per year.
The proposal says that citizen participation is limited to major felonies that carry prison sentences of 10 years or more, as well as cases involving death caused intentionally.
The estimate was made based on the number of such cases from 2015 to last year, the Judicial Yuan document said.
Given that it is a new system, the limit is appropriate, but is open for review and amendment, it said.
The draft was first presented to the legislature in April 2017 as part of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) planned reform of the judicial system, but lawmakers did not pass it before their term ended in January.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS