Judicial Yuan President Lai Haomin began to promote national judicial reform immediately after he took office and the efforts in the past months have already led to some initial results. The progress reports presented by the committees and the staffs of certain divisions during the Second Meeting of the National Judicial Reform held on Apr. 19 were examined and deemed positive by all the attending council members.
To understand the general opinion toward the “public trial observation system,” Judicial Yuan ran a questionnaire survey on the people attending a number of judicial reform seminars at courthouses to evaluate the feasibility of the practice.
Analysis based on the 472 people interviewed shows that 96.5% of them find public trial observation acceptable. 83.4% of the interviewees who happened to be defendants were willing to have their trials opened to public observation, while 86.5% of those who were plaintiffs or victims were willing to have trial observers attending the trials for their cases. Meanwhile, 85.9% of all those interviewed expressed interest in assuming the role of “trial observer”. The said evaluation survey is not yet concluded. It will be continued and extended to encompass more interviewees of different backgrounds and the focus will be to determine the types of cases suitable for public trial observation as well as the selection and protection of trial observers.
The Judicial Yuan already created the “Sex Offender Sentencing Criteria Research Team” in February this year, which headed by Secretary General Lin Jin-fang. The team members include criminal court judges as well as statistics and information specialists. Initially, the team has conducted statistical analysis on the sex offense convictions concluded at district courts throughout the country between 2007 and 2010 to study the ratios of declared sentences, the factors considered, as well as the sentence reductions given in accordance with Article 59 of the Criminal Law and the reprieves granted in accordance with Article 74 in the hope of establishing a sentencing criteria database to prevent discrepancies in sentencing, increase predictability, and bring the rulings of judges closer to the expectation of the public.
To make it possible for the public to learn about the progress of judicial reform as early as possible, the official website of the Judicial Yuan now has a brand new format. Besides providing the latest updates, it also allows the public to access the website through their cell phones or PDAs to find out about the judicial reform progress and the results. They can also obtain information about the status of the trials taking place at each courthouse that day and the cases being deliberated at Taipei High Administrative Court, Shilin District Court, and Kaohsiung District Court.
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