(Staff Reporter) Judicial Yuan President Lai Hau-min presided over the 4th Meeting of the Policy Council of Judicial Reform Promotion on Oct. 18 2011 to sum up the judicial reform achievements in the past year and future policy directions.
To improve efficiency in processing of legal cases, the Judicial Yuan had set the target of “No delay for justice and no long-pending cases in courts of third instance in two years.” Presently, the number of pending cases in the Supreme Court has dropped from 6,133 at the end of May 2008 to 3,883, while the number of those in the Supreme Administrative Court has also decreased from 3,810 to 1,367. The results have been remarkable.
To provide the public with more convenient services, court case progresses have officially been open to enquiry since July; meanwhile, the service of automatic notification via email was added on Oct. 11. The enquiry procedure has been simplified and the items open to enquiry have been increased.
The Judicial Yuan has also proposed the following future important policies:
1. Full compliance with international human rights conventions: The Judicial Yuan will review and amend the Code of Criminal Procedure to add the regulation of reading to offenders their constitutional rights at the time of arrest, with or without a warrant, and to remove the regulation allowing filing of motions for retrial against the interests of defendants, as well as amend the Juvenile Delinquency Act to include the procedure of filing of interlocutory appeals to seek remedies by juveniles and their legal representatives to reinforce human rights protection.
2. In response to social and practical needs, the Judicial Yuan will amend part of the articles of the Statute for Consumer Debt Clearance and the Organic Act for Juvenile
3. Separation of the court and prosecution systems: The Judicial Yuan will establish the “Court Judge Institute” dedicated to court judge training and at the same time promote independence of prosecutors’ offices from the courts.
4. Establishment of a pyramid-structure criminal procedure system: The Judicial Yuan will review and amend the appeal system in the criminal procedure and deliberate on the feasibility of implementing a dual-track system in the criminal procedure.
5. Promotion of important legal system changes: The judicial Yuan will formulate various subordinate laws under the Judge Act, implement of the public trial observation system on a test basis, reorganize the branch courts of the High Court into high courts, deliberate on the feasibility of placing cases involving public law to be tried in administrative courts, and reexamine the Organic Law of the Judicial Yuan.
(See Page 4 for the progress of current promotion of the public trial observation system and Page 2 for details of judicial reform achievements and important policy directions in the future.)
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