Five Incurable Ailments of the "Judge and Prosecutor Evaluation System" - Press Conference on the Two-Year Health Check of the Evaluation System

Since the "case-specific evaluation system" under the Judges Act took effect on January 6, 2012, marking a two-year period, the Judicial Reform Foundation has requested evaluations for 11 judges, resulting in 6 cases sustained by the Judges Evaluation Commission, 4 referred to the Control Yuan, and 3 judges disciplined by the Disciplinary Court. Concurrently, the Judicial Reform Foundation has requested evaluations for 21 prosecutors, resulting in 12 cases sustained by the Prosecutors Evaluation Commission, 6 referred to the Control Yuan, and 2 prosecutors disciplined by the Disciplinary Court. (Attachment 1)

Compared to the old system where the former Committee on the Discipline of Public Functionaries disciplined an average of 3.7 judges and 4.3 prosecutors per year over the past 10 years, the number of disciplinary actions under the new "Disciplinary Court" has not increased significantly; instead, it is slightly lower than under the old system, failing to yield the anticipated effects. (Attachment 2)

Based on two years of reporting experience, the JRF points out five incurable ailments of the "case-specific evaluation." Unless these five ailments are eradicated, the "case-specific evaluation system" cannot fulfill its function of weeding out incompetent judges and prosecutors.

1. The statute of limitations for reporting was ten years under the old system, but is merely two years under the new system.
2. Official interference in the evaluation commissions is profound, making it difficult for evaluation requests to be sustained.
3. The operation of the evaluation commissions is passive and lacks investigative powers, making case investigation difficult.
4. There is a severe shortage of dedicated staff for the evaluation commissions, and commissioners are all part-time, resulting in extremely low momentum.
5. The evaluation process is non-transparent, decisions are not made public, operations are kept in a black box, and members are parochial and conservative.

Five Ailments	Location of Pathology	Case-Specific Evaluation Examples
1. Limitation Period Too Short, Complaints Untimely	Article 36 of the Judges Act stipulates that requests for case-specific evaluation shall be made within two years. Cases exceeding the two-year statute of limitations account for over 24% of complaints received by the JRF, serving as the primary reason for the ineffectiveness of the evaluation system.	JEC Evaluation Ruling No. 6 (2012): A certain Judge Kao displayed poor demeanor during court hearings, but the JEC dismissed the request on the grounds that the two-year statute of limitations had expired. Furthermore, the method of calculating the limitation period—using the judge's "uploading of the judgment to the Judicial Yuan website" as the starting point—is absurd and unreasonable.
2. Official Interference, Purging Dissenters	Article 33 of the Judges Act stipulates that there shall be a total of 4 representatives holding the status of judges and prosecutors; in addition, 4 representatives of socially impartial figures are also selected and appointed by the President of the Judicial Yuan (Minister of Justice). The government holds excessive decision-making power over the list, enabling it to interfere with results and even preemptively purge dissenters.	PEC Evaluation Rulings No. 16, 18, 19 (2013): In the socially prominent cases of Huang Shih-ming and Ch'en Shou-huang, according to news reports, then-PEC spokesperson Professor P'eng Wen-cheng was the only representative of socially impartial figures not nominated for reappointment, allegedly due to a disagreement with official opinions.
3. Passive and Powerless, Investigation Difficult	Restricted by regulations, evaluation commissioners do not enjoy active investigative powers and can therefore only passively accept cases, even self-limiting their scope of investigation to "no action without a complaint." If evaluation commissioners are unable to comprehensively investigate whether the reported party has committed other unlawful acts, the system is doomed to be ineffective.	Disciplinary Court Judgment No. 3 (2012): In the corruption case of Prosecutor Ching T'ien-po, the Ministry of Justice directly referred the case to the Control Yuan for impeachment without passing through PEC investigation. Consequently, the PEC was unable to investigate whether Prosecutor Ching had committed unlawful or improper conduct in other cases.
4. Insufficient Staff, Poor Adjudication Quality	The JEC has only 1 full-time secretary, and the PEC is staffed concurrently by a single personnel officer from the Ministry of Justice, meaning staff levels cannot even support current operations. After the JRF files a report, it must still dispatch personnel to assist the JEC and PEC in transcribing audio recordings, consuming massive civil society resources. Due to insufficient manpower, the PEC even mistranscribed audio transcripts, leading to outrageously incorrect resolutions.	PEC Evaluation Ruling No. 10 (2013): Citing insufficient manpower, the PEC requested the JRF to dispatch personnel to transcribe audio-visual recordings of the prosecutor's interrogation. At 10:55:43 in the JRF transcript, bold, underlined, enlarged text pointed out that the prosecutor said: "Ah, you're even going to count a hundred NT dollars (loudly, acting fiercely toward Wang XX, slamming the table)!" However, the PEC concluded the case on the grounds that the prosecutor did not slam the table.
5. Secret Adjudication, Lacking Public Trust	Article 35 of the Judges Act grants civil organizations the right to request case-specific evaluations, yet it fails to guarantee procedural participation rights—such as applying to investigate evidence and expressing opinions—for civil organizations and complainants. After requesting a case-specific evaluation, the JRF is completely unable to ascertain the evaluation process, nor can it express dissenting opinions in response to the evaluated person's defense. This causes many evaluation cases that could have otherwise been sustained to result in outrageously incorrect resolutions due to the lack of participation by the requesting party and complainant. Article 41 of the Judges Act stipulates that when evaluation commissions exercise their duties, information shall not be made public without the consent of the evaluated judge/prosecutor or a resolution of the evaluation commission. However, matters concerning judge and prosecutor evaluations involve the public interest; except where laws dictate confidentiality, resolutions should be made public to establish public trust.	JEC Evaluation Ruling No. 1 (2013): DNA testing showed that the two parties did not possess a half-sibling relationship (brother and sister), yet the judge still ruled that a half-sibling relationship existed. The JEC commissioned experts for evaluation but failed to give the JRF (which requested the case) an opportunity to express opinions, leading to a misreading of expert opinions and an outrageously incorrect resolution finding the evaluation unfounded. PEC Evaluation Ruling No. 19 (2013): During the investigation into Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming, the PEC refused procedural participation to the evaluation-requesting organization on the grounds that the parties did not consent, and also refused permission to review case files, denying this foundation the opportunity to express its opinions. Subsequent resolutions could not be made public, sparking endless questioning from all sectors.

To resolve the above five ailments, this Foundation proposes a partial amendment draft to the Judges Act. We also call upon the Legislative Yuan to swiftly amend the Judges Act, perfect the evaluation mechanism, weed out incompetent judges and prosecutors, and build a judiciary worthy of public trust.

Attachments

1. Statistics Table of Evaluation Cases
2. List of Judge Discipline Cases by the Committee on the Discipline of Public Functionaries
3. Draft Amendment to the "Judges Act"

Attendees

Legislator Yu Mei-nu
Professor Ch'ü Hai-yüan, Chairman, Judicial Reform Foundation
Attorney Lin Yung-sung, Standing Board Director, Judicial Reform Foundation
Professor Huang Kuo-ch'ang, Executive Director, Judicial Reform Foundation
Attorney Kao Jung-chih, CEO, Judicial Reform Foundation

Press Contact

Attorney Kao Jung-chih 02-2523-1178