"Devoid of Right and Wrong, Walk Out in Protest" ~ Press Release by Walkout Members of the Judicial Yuan's Personnel Review Committee

The Judges Personnel Review Committee of the Judicial Yuan (hereinafter referred to as the Personnel Review Committee) held its 2nd meeting of 2013 today. The content of Proposal 4 involved Presiding Judge Ch'en Shih-po and Judge Ch'en Chia-yu of the Hualien District Court. Citing "poor emotional management," "mutual recriminations," "severely affecting the harmony among colleagues in the court," and "damaging the judicial image" during their trial of the defendant Huang Chih-cheng on charges of injury—without notifying, consulting, or obtaining the consent of the two judges—the Judicial Yuan abruptly invoked Article 45, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 4 of the Judges Act ("there is substantial cause to warrant a prima facie determination that one is unsuited to continue serving in the original region") to propose a special transfer (proposing separate transfers for the two), reassigning Presiding Judge Ch'en Shih-po to the Taoyuan District Court as a presiding judge, and Judge Ch'en Chia-yu to the Pingtung District Court as a judge.

The Hualien District Court only concluded its Self-Disciplinary Committee meeting on the night of March 7, reaching a conclusion of no further review because no concrete evidence was found to support the accusations made by either party, and submitted the matter to the Judicial Yuan for record. Unconventionally, the Judicial Yuan did not mail the proposal to all Personnel Review Committee members until March 11. The Personnel Review Committee members participating in today's deliberation deemed the investigation results of the Hualien District Court's Self-Disciplinary Committee to be fraught with procedural flaws (such as whether certain members should have recused themselves but failed to do so) and lacking clarity regarding the factual truth. Yet, the Judicial Yuan rushed to submit this special transfer proposal as early as March 9, sparking major controversy within the judicial circle. Reassigning the two judges against their will while the truth remains unclear and responsibilities undetermined is evidently overly hasty and careless in timing, and the facts urgently need to be investigated.

The two judges in this case, who previously sat on the same collegiate bench, lacked mutual trust, engaged in mutual recriminations, and showed poor emotional management, thereby making headlines in the media and indeed affecting the harmony of the court and damaging the judicial image. However, even if judges exhibit improper speech or conduct while trying cases, according to Articles 18, 19, and 21 of the Judges Act, persons with supervisory authority (including the President of the Judicial Yuan and the President of the Hualien District Court) can issue orders, or written or oral warnings, to urge them to reflect and correct themselves, which would suffice to quell the controversy. Instead, the Judicial Yuan hastily invoked the most severe sanction of forced reassignment while the factual truth remained unclear, acting against the will of the two judges. Such an action clearly violates the principle of proportionality and the principle of last resort.

Because the forced reassignment clause concerning "unsuitability for a locality" is clearly aimed at situations where a judge's actions have already harmed judicial credibility and "externally" triggered public distrust in judicial integrity—meaning that a judge has engaged in external misconduct, corruption, or at least improper and complex associations with local figures, thereby necessitating a punitive forced reassignment to prevent external abuses and maintain internal discipline without the judge's consent—the Judicial Yuan is now expanding the interpretation of the grounds for this clause. By taking the collegiate bench judges' "poor emotional management" and "making headlines" as the basis, striking both parties with fifty blows of the board each, and forcibly transferring them away from their original posts under the guise of unsuitability for the locality in an attempt to quell the dispute, this move is seen as judicial administration seizing control of judges' personnel reassignments. It gradually erodes and damages judicial independence, creating a chilling effect where judges within the system dare not freely express their opinions.

Furthermore, this mid-term forced reassignment of the two judges not only severely compromises the manpower of the Hualien District Court—which is already understaffed, with two judges scheduled for military service this year and one judge urgently needing a transfer due to illness—while the Judicial Yuan has only explained that a lawyer-turned-judge will be assigned to fill one vacancy at the end of March, and the remaining staffing needs cannot be met until the nationwide unified judicial reassignment in September, with the true reasons remaining unknown to anyone. Some have even raised the following questions: Did the Judicial Yuan submit this proposal merely to protect Hualien District Court President Chang Yu-mei—who should bear administrative responsibility for previously highly controversial failures in administrative supervision—while unscrupulously sacrificing the transfer rights of the two presiding judges and judges, and by extension sacrificing the other presiding judges and judges of the Hualien District Court who must bear the burden of reduced manpower, as well as collectively sacrificing the overall litigation rights of the people in the Hualien region?

This highly controversial personnel proposal faced severe questioning and objections from nearly half of the members of the Personnel Review Committee, with some proposing that the Judicial Yuan temporarily shelve or postpone the matter while the facts remain unclear and responsibilities unclarified. Unfortunately, these proposals failed to pass in the votes. Despite the fact that Judicial Yuan President Lai, who holds the sole right to propose judicial personnel matters, only agreed to amend the wording of the proposal while stubbornly insisting on continuing the discussion and proceeding to a vote, the six elected representatives of district court personnel review committee members expressed deep regret and heartbreak. They believe that if this case is forcefully pushed to a vote, it would mean that judicial administration could henceforth use forced personnel reassignments as a tool to interfere with the constitutional authority of judges to independently try cases free from any threats, thereby reducing the spirit of judicial independence—for which generations of judicial seniors have fought and steadfastly maintained—to nothingness. To safeguard the dignity of judges and defend them against arbitrary and ambiguous forced reassignments, we reluctantly resolved to walk out and protest together, signaling our profound disapproval of the Judicial Yuan's solemn stance on handling this proposal.

Personnel Review Committee Members Walking Out in Protest

Lin Chen-hsien (Judge, Tainan District Court)
Kuo Hsuan-yi (Judge, Changhua District Court)
Hung Yao-tsan (Judge, Taichung District Court)
Fan Ming-ta (Judge, Taoyuan District Court)
Yang Chih-hsiung (Judge, Panchiao District Court)
Lin Meng-huang (Judge, Taipei District Court)