Public Notice Regarding the Judges Evaluation Commission: The Core Issue is Not the Severity of Punishment, but the Standards of Punishment Shaped by the Commission

In February of this year, our Foundation filed a request with the Judicial Yuan's Judges Evaluation Commission for an individual case evaluation concerning Judge Kuo XX of the Taipei District Court, regarding grounds for evaluation under Article 30, Paragraph 2, Subparagraphs 1 and 5 of the Judges Act. Today, the Commission issued a resolution dismissing the request, and pursuant to Article 21, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 1 of the Judges Act, referred the matter to the President of the Taipei District Court to issue an official order urging attention. Our Foundation issues the following statement:

1. Judges Disregarding Evidence and Adjudicating Arbitrarily:

   In this lawsuit to establish the existence of a parent-child relationship, National Taiwan University Hospital had already issued a blood relationship appraisal report concluding that it was impossible for the plaintiff and the defendant to have a biological relationship. If the judge intended to overturn this appraisal conclusion, she was required to adopt other investigative methods and explain the reasoning in the judgment. Judge Kuo failed to do this; she neither expressed any opinion on the aforementioned blood appraisal report in the judgment nor abruptly made a contrary determination. Is this not disregarding evidence and arbitrary adjudication?

2. The Judges Evaluation Commission Tolerates Unlawful Judicial Decisions:

   Furthermore, the resolution itself acknowledges that lawsuits involving parent-child relationships possess a strong public interest character, and family court judges inherently have the obligation to discover the truth. The determination of blood relations has profound impacts—it may affect blood ties or determine the existence of inheritance rights—and utmost caution must be exercised. Yet, the Judges Evaluation Commission ultimately deemed these flaws to be "not major errors," merely delegating the matter to the President of the Taipei District Court to issue an order urging attention. Does this not amount to condoning the presiding judge's violation of the fundamental legal principles of parent-child litigation?

3. The Public is Urged to Pay Attention to the Judges Evaluation Commission:

   A fundamental purpose of the judges evaluation system is at least to urge judges to "adjudicate in accordance with the law." In this case, the judge's unlawful and arbitrary adjudication was clear, and the resolution itself even admitted that: "The presiding judge made not a single mention of this appraisal report in the judgment… which nonetheless constitutes a flaw" (page 10 of the resolution). Yet, the Judges Evaluation Commission still resolved that the request was unfounded. Not only does this demonstrate a blind eye toward the infringement of citizens' rights and a dismissal of the importance of judges "adjudicating in accordance with the law," but it also jeopardizes the necessity of the Judges Evaluation Commission's existence.

In summary, rather than targeting the judge, this kind of "urging attention" feels more like a reminder to the public to pay closer attention to the performance of the Judges Evaluation Commission.

Press Contact

Judicial Reform Foundation, Lin Feng-cheng, 02-25231178