Don’t Feed the People a Judicial Reform with a Leavening Agent as an Additive

  Don’t Feed the People a Judicial Reform with a Leavening Agent as an Additive

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

August 15, 2017

 Translation of an Excerpt

The Judicial Reform National Affairs Conference has ended. As expected, the divergences that emerged in the conference far exceeded the consensuses; the questions we see far exceeded the answers we have found. For this reason, if we want to use the conclusions of the conference to push judicial reform, or say that these answers can meet the people’s expectations, we are afraid, it is far-fetched. Besides external criticisms pointing to the shallowness of the answers, the DPP legislative caucus declared that they would not “accept them wholesale.” President Tsai Ing-wen, under such circumstances, has asked the various departments to "resolutely and as soon as possible" push for judicial reforms, but toward which direction?

It is not surprising that the Judicial Reform National Affairs Conference ended with an outcome viewed with pessimism by the outside world. First, Tsai Ying-wen wanted to respond to the people’s dissatisfaction with the Judiciary; however, she had not found the cause of the malaise, only using the approach of a "lavish banquet" to operate. The end result was, of course, filled with pomp and circumstance; however, it did not prescribe the right medicine. Second, although the Tsai government selected delegates from all circles to participate in the Judicial Reform National Affairs Conference, the actual operators were a small number of the President’s cronies. Tsai Ying-wen, at the last moment, even presided at and guided the whole picture, morphing due process of the Judicial Reform National Affairs Conference, making it off key. Third, many delegates deliberately overlooked certain issues (such as juvenile and gender issues), but became yes-men to what President Tsai had ruled and decided. The legitimacy of this kind of conference that became subservient to power naturally became the object of questioning.  

After nine months of discussions as to whether our country wants to adopt the "jury system" or the "Schoeffen system," the conference could not reach a conclusion, the reason being this system would involve huge changes, making it difficult to choose from. President Tsai, however, wanted people’s judges to enter the courtroom, letting ordinary citizens participate in the trial. Is this a reasonable design to elevate the quality of the Judiciary in a country like Taiwan that adopts “written law”?

Especially, if we concentrate, heart and soul, on the design of "people’s judges," that would be adding an overdose of a leavening agent in the banquet of judicial reform, attempting to enlarge as much as possible the pancake of "people's judiciary," inside which in fact only more air was injected, and no actual quality or quantity of rule of law existed. In such a way, not only would the judicial reform would fail, it would, we are afraid, lead to backpedaling of equal justice before the law. After the end of the Judicial Reform National Affairs Conference, the government did not receive much applause, but Tsai Ying-wen's support ratings dropped to 29%, a new low. This figure, perhaps, is a signal that the people refuse to swallow the political leavening agent!

Attachment : none