Confirmation for court-approved settlement plan shall be issued; regulations pursuant to Article 53 of the said Act shall be stipulated.
Since the promulgation on April 11, 2008, the Consumer Insolvency Act has been implemented for more than a year. On June 4, the Judicial Yuan hosted the 2009 Conference on Consumer Insolvency Cases, in order to gather information regarding the practice and problems district courts encounter. The regulation pursuant to Article 53 of the Consumer Insolvency Act promulgated by the President on May 13, 2009 was also studied in the conference.
The conference was hosted by the President of the Civil Division of the Judicial Yuan, President Jing-yuan Wu. There are more than 40 participants, including division-chief judges, judges, and judicial affair officers in charge of consumer insolvency cases. President Wu first appreciated the hard works by staff members working on consumer insolvency cases. Then, the division-chief-judge in Taichung District Court, Liang-hua Zhang, who has an outstanding closing ratio and speed, gave a talk on the organization structure and procedure for consumer insolvency cases in the said district court and the consumer insolvency center.
According to statistics on the Consumer Insolvency Act since April 11, 2008 to April 30, 2009, there are 18,378 settlements application and 1,532 liquidation applications filed to district courts, where 4,452 and 311 entered into the settlement and liquidation procedure, respectively, representing about 20% of the cases. Regarding those in the settlement and liquidation procedure, 3,957 and 280 are still in process. Participants in the conference believe that the main reason most cases are still pending is because: currently, the court is still familiarizing and exploring the new system; the application or modification period specified in the Act is pretty long; negotiations in the settlement process are time-consuming; the manpower and funding for consumer insolvency cases are limited; the creditor objection procedure is complicated and detailed.
To solve problems in practice, relevant lists and information system, the participants reached the following conclusions: the judge shall send the decision in writing to judicial affair officers regarding consumer insolvency cases; the contents on the list of creditors shall be adjusted to meet practical needs; the weekly announced statistics on the allocation of consumer insolvency cases shall be announced monthly in the future; once the settlement plan is approved by the court, a confirmation shall be issued; if the judicial affair officer thinks that the "Si-Zhi-Xiao-Zhai-Geng" case shall be transferred to the liquidation procedure, the case-transfer shall be approved by the president of the court or others designated by the president; it the judge thinks that the "Zhi-Xiao-Zhai-Geng" case shall be transferred to the liquidation procedure, the judge shall make a note on the case-form and start a new case.
As for the amended Article 53 of the Consumer Insolvency Act, it stipulates that once the court starts the settlement procedure, the debtor may ask the municipal or county/city government to assist the settlement plan. Participants also suggested the Judicial Yuan and Executive Yuan to stipulate the application process and relevant regulations pursuant to Article 53, excluding cases with legal representatives, and providing training programs for assistants in advance; in addition, in light of the model of domestic violence cases, designated personnel can be assigned to district court to help the court and creditors. Furthermore, there are many legal issues since the promulgation of the Consumer Insolvency Act; to reach a consensus, the Civil Division of the Judicial Yuan decided to collect proposals and host a conference on relevant issues in July or August, in order to improve the application of Consumer Insolvency Act.
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