(Staff Reporter)
After seven months of active effort in promotion of judicial reform, the Judicial Yuan assessed the results and presented them along with reform progress to be discussed at the 3rd Meeting of the Policy Council of Judicial Reform on Jul. 26. The members of the Council affirmed the achievements and also gave suggestions for related decisions in the future.
Regarding the reform of the Judicial Yuan’s structure and future positioning, the Council assessed the current judicial environment and social developments and concluded that continuation of reorganization of judicial agencies would be inappropriate at the moment. However, some of the reform concepts should be implemented under the present system and judicial accountability needed reinforcement to increase the commensurability of the court system with social needs. Meanwhile, the Council also suggested that the criminal procedure ought to be changed from the conventionally adopted consolidated processing to separate processing. In accordance with the gravity and complexity of cases, different litigation procedures should be taken. Concerned parties should be allowed active participation throughout the procedure for “felonies and disputed cases,” whereas simple, quick and inexpensive procedures should be adopted for “misdemeanors and undisputed cases.”
To allow private citizens to take part in trials and upgrade judicial transparency, the Judicial Yuan began in January this year to study the feasibility of the public trial observation system. The survey conducted by the Election Study Center of National Cheng Chi University under the commission of the Judicial Yuan revealed that as high as 76.8% of the 1073 people interviewed supported the system through which private citizens could co-try cases, co-examine evidence and discuss cases with judges, while in the end judges who have undergone professional training would make the final decision. The interviewees disapproved the idea of having “private citizens and judges make the final decision together,” the main reason being that private citizens would be lacking the required legal knowledge and likely to make wrong decisions, or do so after taking bribes or receiving threats. On the whole, the Policy Council of Judicial Reform concurred with the public trial observation system concept and would soon draw up the draft regulations.
Under the effort of the team responsible for the “Study on Sexual Offender Sentencing” that was conducted to promote just and reasonable sentencing, the initial statistical analysis was completed and a prototype of the “Sexual Offender Sentencing Information System” was also already developed and made accessible online for judges to retrieve references for sentencing. Continued endeavors would be made to expand the scope of sentencing study and analysis through integration of the information system and criminal procedure reform. Hopefully, inconsistency in sentencing would be reduced and the predictability and suitability of sentencing would be increased.
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