Hope Amidst Disappointment: Civil Society Groups Visit President Ma Ying-jeou to Present Proposals for Judicial Reform

Civil society organizations officially visited President Ma Ying-jeou at the Presidential Office this morning (December 11) to provide civic opinions and recommendations on judicial reform. In addition to legal professional bodies such as the Taiwan Law Association, the Arbitration Association, and the Judicial Reform Foundation, the delegation included organizations that have long served and spoken up for disadvantaged groups—covering women, laborers, indigenous peoples, new immigrants, and persons with disabilities—such as the National Alliance of Taiwan Women's Associations, the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation, the Garden of Hope Foundation, the Taiwan Labour Front, the Indigenous Peoples Policy Association, the Trans-Asia Sisters Association, Taiwan, the The League of Welfare Organizations for the Mentally Disabled, Taiwan, and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.

Focusing on their respective professional fields and the mistreatment suffered by their service recipients within the judicial process, the organizations visiting today presented judicial reform proposals to President Ma centered around three major demands:

1. Establish a committee directly subordinate to the Presidential Office to deliberate on judicial reform matters, serve as the President's advisory staff on judicial reform, and exercise continuous oversight over finalized judicial reform policies. The committee should comprise a majority of non-governmental members and non-lawyers.
2. While judicial reform is not lacking in policies and bills, legislative efficiency must be demanded to prevent the recurrence of painful experiences such as the twenty-year failure to enact the Judges Act.
3. By analogy with anti-corruption efforts, the Presidential Office should report the progress of judicial reform to the general public every three months to demonstrate the President's determination regarding judicial reform.

Following the meeting, as relayed by Attorney Ku Li-hsiung, Chairperson of the Taiwan Law Association, the entire visit could be described as "hope amidst disappointment." The President did not clearly agree during the meeting to the civic demand to establish a judicial reform advisory committee under the Presidential Office to coordinate judicial reform matters. However, the President mentioned that within one month, he would conduct further evaluations and carry out public opinion polls to understand what the problems in the judiciary are, how the people feel about the judiciary, and whether the people truly trust the judiciary. Furthermore, the President expressed that establishing a judicial reform advisory committee has its difficulties, but regarding how to continuously track issues that the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice have persistently failed to resolve—whether under the Human Rights Committee or through some other means—the President stated that further evaluation is required. Attorney Ku Li-hsiung stated that civil society eagerly anticipates that the President will personally step forward to demand and declare the progress of judicial reform, and that agencies such as the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice will likewise consent to these civic demands. Attorney Lin Yung-sung, a board member of the Judicial Reform Foundation, explicitly stated that if judicial reform could rely solely on the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice, there would be no need to trouble President Ma. We expect the President, regardless of the method adopted, to listen to the voices of ordinary citizens and non-lawyers so that the public may witness progress in the judiciary.

Yang Fang-wan, Vice Chairperson of the National Alliance of Taiwan Women's Associations, also emphasized at the end that while judicial reform involves power struggles among various factions, it must not lose sight of the people—that is, the perspective of the users. The judiciary should exist for the people, which is why the various groups hope that, from the height of the presidency, a long-term advisory committee dedicated to judicial reform can be established within the Presidential Office to consistently fulfill human rights protection. We expect the government to examine the unprofessional aspects of the judiciary through the lens of the people's needs and to face up to the urgency of public demand for judicial reform.

Following this visit, civil society groups not only briefed the public on the content of the meeting but also stated that they will continue to oversee President Ma's declarations on judicial reform from a civic perspective, looking forward to the President not only making a formal response regarding the progress of judicial reform after one month, but also implementing judicial reform policies concretely and efficiently.