It Is Not Just a Romance

The protagonists of the recent trending gossip in domestic media are likely not political or entertainment figures, but rather two judicial officers (a female prosecutor and a male judge) and their romance. Judicial personnel, who usually carry an aura of prestige, occasionally making the front-page gossip of the social section could perhaps be considered another version of 'the humanization of the judiciary.' As the female protagonist's former husband has filed criminal charges against the male judge for impairment of family harmony, the matter has entered judicial proceedings, and the truth may eventually be restored through judicial investigation. However, regardless of whether the truth is a misunderstanding by the former husband or an actual extramarital affair, beyond the gossip, the whole incident still has a serious side worth discussing.

According to media reports, the incident originated from the Taipei District Court's implementation of prosecutors attending court sessions throughout the entire process to conduct cross-examination. The female protagonist happened to be assigned to the male protagonist's courtroom as the prosecutor executing public prosecution, leading to long-term professional interactions and eventually a romance blossoming over time.

The author happened to have served as defense counsel in the courtroom of both protagonists, and during the cross-examination of witnesses, engaged in verbal 'clashes' with the female prosecutor due to objections. Following the implementation of prosecutors attending court throughout public prosecutions, it is originally a normal phenomenon for prosecutors and defense attorneys to occasionally debate and argue due to differing positions during court trials. In any case, whether regarding substantive or procedural disputes, they are ultimately adjudicated by the judge from a neutral, third-party standpoint. However, if the starting point of the romance reported in the media is true, the author cannot help but wonder: when the judge made rulings on the disputes between the author and that female prosecutor, what was he seeing in his eyes—a lover or a prosecutor?

The author has no intention of accusing the male judge of making unfair rulings, but such suspicions are human nature. It is believed that many lawyers and parties who have had their cases heard in their courtrooms share the same suspicion naturally welling up. If the public generally suspects that the judge convicting and the prosecutor prosecuting are 'in cahoots,' then which criminal guilty verdict can still be trusted by the public? And which criminal defendant would be willing to believe that they can receive a fair trial in a criminal court? Viewed from the perspective of posing a threat to public trust in the judiciary, while this gossip incident has added insult to injury to an already poor judicial image, it simultaneously exposes the phenomenon where the organizational forms of our country's judiciary and prosecution are separated, but emotionally they still belong to one family. This may well be an opportunity for improvement. This undesirable phenomenon stems from our country's long-standing judicial appointment system. This system ignores the fact that judges and prosecutors respectively belong to the judicial power and administrative power in nature and are inherently different constitutional roles. Instead, it recruits judicial officers through a 'unified' examination, 'locks' those who pass into a judicial training institute for long-term 'unified' training, and after graduation, assigns them either as prosecutors or judges. Under the revolutionary camaraderie cultivated by passing the same examination and undergoing long-term training together, deep peer friendships and seniority ethics prevail, while the awareness of the separation of the judiciary and prosecution is weak—which is rather human nature. Perhaps due to this emotion of 'the judiciary and prosecution being one family,' many judges and prosecutors in our country still do not shy away from private contact with each other outside the courtroom and litigation proceedings, even after the implementation of prosecutors attending court throughout public prosecutions. However, such private contact is often strictly tabooed in countries with complete legal systems, because any private contact between the judge presiding over trials and the prosecutor in charge of prosecution—unknown to the defendant—may lead to the bankruptcy of trust in the judge's fairness and neutrality. This gossip incident precisely demonstrates that our judicial personnel not only lack awareness in this regard subjectively, but also objectively lack the necessary codes of conduct to follow.

Looking to the future, the fundamental solution still lies in the completion of the legislation of the Judges Act, enabling our judges to be appointed from outstanding senior lawyers and prosecutors. Only when the judiciary and prosecution no longer stem from the same source can they truly be separated. Prior to this, the author personally believes we can only rely on the Judicial Yuan to promptly formulate relevant judicial ethics codes for judges who lack awareness in this regard to follow.

※ Published in: Liberty Times