Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday signed off on draft amendments to the Criminal Compensation Act (刑事補償法) that would allow wrongfully convicted people to seek compensation for harm to their reputation.
Under the proposed amendments, people who have been erroneously sentenced to death, life imprisonment or a prison term without receiving probation — or people whose civil rights have been infringed upon as a result of such sentences — but whose personal freedom has not been restricted would have the right to request compensation, Ministry of Justice Department of Prosecutorial Affairs Director-General Lin Jinn-tsun (林錦村) told a news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei.
People who have previously been wrongly convicted would have two years from the amendments’ ratification to seek compensation, Lin said.
If the person has paid a fine or has had their assets seized and auctioned, they would be compensated two or three times the amount of the fine paid or the sum of the items auctioned, the draft amendments showed.
The government would determine the amount after factoring in the losses that a convict has suffered, they showed.
For example, if a wrongly convicted person fled overseas, they would receive more compensation, Lin said.
The proposals would give wrongly convicted people the choice of claiming compensation in a lump sum or in installments, he said.
The draft amendments were written in accordance with two conclusions reached during the National Congress on Judicial Reform in 2016 to redress the harm inflicted on wrongfully convicted people and to improve the ways that they could seek judicial remedy, he said.
At a Cabinet meeting, Su asked the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice to work extensively with the legislative caucuses so that the proposals would soon be passed.
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