The Constitutional Court on Monday said in a judgement that a rule governing how appeals in criminal cases are allotted to Supreme Court judges does not violate the Constitution, narrowing hopes for retrials for 35 people on death row.
Fifty-two people, including 35 people who have been sentenced to death, requested an interpretation of the Supreme Court’s case allotment rules, which stipulate that serious criminal cases appealed to the Supreme Court after being sent back to lower courts at least twice must be heard by the same judge who heard them previously, unless that judge has left the court.
The rule is intended to ensure that appeals do not take too long by having a presiding judge who is familiar with the case.
Photo: CNA
The petitioners argued that the rule contravened their constitutional right to a fair trial.
However, the Constitutional Court said that requiring the same judge to hear such cases did not contravene the right to appeal as stipulated in Article 16 of the Constitution.
Judges should recuse themselves if they are selected to hear an appeal of a case in which they have previously participated in issuing a verdict, it added.
The Constitutional Court gave the legislature two years to amend recusal laws in the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法).
If the court had ruled in favor of the petitioners, the 35 people on death row who had cases allotted according to the rule might have been eligible for retrials.
In related news, the Ministry of Justice on Monday said that it was currently unable to carry out executions, as the 38 people on death row have a separate petition pending before the Constitutional Court.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS