There is an urgent need to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) and introduce electronic warrants to address shortcomings in its Article 77, legal experts said yesterday.
The issue arose after Gin Zhan International Co (津棧國際貿易) manager Lee Yen-ting (李彥廷), who is accused of importing tainted chili powder, said that his arrest was illegal, as police showed him a digital photograph of a warrant, not the actual warrant.
Lee’s company is suspected of being the prime source of chili powder imported from China that contained Sudan III, an industrial dye that is banned in food in Taiwan.
Photo: Wu Cheng-feng, Taipei Times
Article 77 says that “an arrest warrant is required to execute the arrest of an accused.”
Enforcement personnel interpret that as being a physical piece of paper representing the legal basis to detain an individual, the legal experts said.
The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office was entirely within its rights to detain Lee after he could not be contacted while on bail, as that was grounds to suspect that he could be on the run, they said.
However, the conventional interpretation of Article 77 would mean that all 50 groups of police officers each had to have a warrant to detain Lee, a highly inefficient situation, they said.
Lawyer Chang Tao-chou (張道周) said that the Ministry of Justice, the Judicial Yuan, the High Prosecutors’ Office, the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau are working together to establish a jointly accessible digital archive for judicial documents.
Introducing electronic warrants would improve the efficacy of detaining people as long as the archive is coordinated, its records can be verified and law enforcement personnel are provided with decent software and hardware, Chang said.
However, digitizing everything brings its own problems, including hacking, he said, adding that personal documents or evidence of criminal activity could be leaked.
Amending articles 77 and 79 to include definitions of electronic warrants and introduce ancillary laws to designate their format would help prevent counterfeits, he said.
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University Law School professor Lin Chih-chieh (林志潔) agreed that electronic warrants would make detaining suspects more efficient.
Former judge Lin Yu-hui (林玉蕙) said that physical copies of warrants should still be delivered to suspects after they are detained, or procedural justice might be put at risk.
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