June 26 International Day in Support of Victims of Torture: 54 Legal Scholars Petition for Judicial Review of the Final Judgment in the Chiou Ho-shun Case – Press Conference on Requesting Judicial Yuan Review of Final Judgment Documents in the Chiou Ho-shun Case

On June 26 International Day in Support of Victims of Torture last year, civil society groups held the "Seeing Torture Victims" event, publicizing four wrongful imprisonment cases caused by torture: the 1996 Chiang Kuo-ch'ing case, the 1987 Chiou Ho-shun case, the 2002 Cheng Hsing-tse case, and the 2000 Hsieh Chih-hung case. On this year's International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, we deeply regret to announce that, aside from the exonerated Chiang Kuo-ch'ing, the government has yet to take any exoneration measures for the other three cases, leaving these three torture victims to bear endless wrongful suffering.

On March 15 this year, the Judicial Yuan promulgated the "Directions for the Implementation of the Review of Final Judgment Documents by the Judicial Yuan" to exercise quality control over judicial judgments. Pursuant to Point 6 of these Directions, if a review reveals that the reviewed judgment documents indeed contain flaws, or even that "there are facts sufficient to recognize that, due to intent or gross negligence, the contents of the judgment apart from legal interpretations contain obvious and gross errors that severely infringe upon people's rights and interests, in addition to correcting the flaws by way of individual case corrections, it may also recommend that the Judicial Yuan refer the case to the Judges Evaluation Commission for individual case evaluation." Because the judgment documents issued by the Supreme Court and the Taiwan High Court in the Chiou Ho-shun case are riddled with errors—with major gross errors in both fact-finding and the application of law—they constitute a grave infringement upon Chiou Ho-shun's human rights. To this end, the Judicial Reform Foundation initiated a petition, which garnered the response of 54 domestic legal scholars, requesting the Judicial Yuan to review the judgment documents of the Chiou Ho-shun case in accordance with the newly promulgated requirements.

Today we are holding a press conference to explain our demands and openly submit the Statement of Reasons Requesting Review to the Judicial Yuan as a concrete action for this year's International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Through this, we demand that the government must fulfill its responsibility in preventing torture and ensure that another Chiang Kuo-ch'ing case is never given the chance to happen again.

Attachments

1. Statement of Reasons Requesting the Judicial Yuan to Review Final Judgment Documents

Attendees

Chiou Ho-shun Case Defense Team / Attorney Ku Li-hsiung, Attorney Yu Po-hsiang, Attorney Cheng K'ai-hung
Representative of Petitioning Scholars / Assistant Professor Hu Po-yen
Rescue Organization Representatives / Judicial Reform Foundation, Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, Taiwan Association for Innocence, Amnesty International Taiwan, Taiwan Association for Human Rights 

Press Contacts

Attorney Yu Po-hsiang, Attorney Kao Jung-chih