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.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS