Maintaining Social Order and Examining the Prosecutorial System

In the face of worsening public security and unsolved major criminal cases, public trust in the government and confidence in the crime prevention and investigation system have been severely undermined. While calls for severe punishments in troubled times have resurfaced, the key to public security from a crime deterrence perspective is solving cases. Otherwise, even if existing statutory penalties are increased, it will not stop criminals' gambling mentality, but rather plunge society into a climate of retributive rhetoric that accelerates moral decay. In light of this, the Judicial Reform Foundation will re-examine current issues in crime investigation among prosecutors, police, and investigative agencies from the perspective of effective crime prevention, detection, and prosecution. Specifically, we hope to establish a reasonable allocation of duties among prosecutors, police, and investigative agencies to prevent obstacles to solving cases—such as overlapping jurisdictions and turf wars—caused by unclear divisions of labor and responsibilities.

1. Enhancing Police Equipment and Resources

   This entails not only hardware allocation for the police, but more importantly, strengthening their capacity for scientific criminal investigation. Facing new forms of crime—whether syndicated or white-collar crime—planned and organized activities are characteristics of nearly all major criminal cases. Therefore, the police must correspondingly enhance their investigative capabilities. Beyond allocating large budgets for firearms, carpet-search sweeps of mountains, and random inspections, greater emphasis should be placed on strengthening scientific investigation capabilities such as forensic identification and logical deduction.

2. Establishing Professional Investigative Authority for the Police

   The police should be the primary force for maintaining social order. Given that criminal police are professionally trained in the investigation of violent crimes, violent crimes should be proactively investigated by the police, establishing their professional role in evidence collection rather than extortion of confessions.

3. Clarifying the Authority of Prosecutors

   As the "masters of investigation," prosecutors' authority should encompass investigation, indictment, prosecution at trial, and the power to petition for compulsory measures. Furthermore, they should be granted the power to review case filings. Except for violent crimes, prosecutors are the professional masters of investigation for other types of crimes (such as corruption, malpractice, and economic crimes) and should therefore be responsible for investigating them. Prosecutors should only intervene in violent crimes under exceptional circumstances, and once involved, they should assume a leading role in the investigation and bear full external responsibility to ensure that authority and accountability are aligned.

4. Enhancing the Investigative Capabilities of Prosecutors

   Although the prosecutorial system serves as the "master of investigation," it lacks subordinate investigative tools. When the police fail to cooperate, it often results in an "empty investigation." Therefore, the staffing and organization of the prosecutorial system should be expanded to enable prosecutors to substantively direct investigations.

5. Reorganizing the Investigation Bureau's Crime Prevention and Investigation System under the Prosecutorial System

   The status of the Investigation Bureau, formerly under the Ministry of Justice, has long been ambiguous, frequently leading to unclear divisions of labor and mutual obstruction with prosecutors and police. Reorganizing the Investigation Bureau—whose personnel have received professional crime prevention and investigation training—under the prosecutorial system will resolve the prosecutor's dilemma of having generals without soldiers while enabling investigators to fully utilize their expertise.

6. Ensuring Prosecutorial Independence

   The key to the prosecutorial system's effectiveness in investigation lies in the premise of independent case handling. Judicial independence can only be established and prosecutors prevented from becoming appendages of the powerful when they can withstand external interference. Therefore, to uphold the spirit of external independence within the prosecutorial system, special statutory regulations should be enacted regarding the selection, personnel system, and training of prosecutors.

7. Prosecutors Must Attend Court and Present Arguments

   Prosecutorial attendance at court hearings is a vital principle of judicial proceedings. If a new arrangement and allocation of roles among the police, prosecutors, and investigative agencies with distinct jurisdictions and affiliations can be established in the future, prosecutorial court attendance will become even more crucial, enabling them to stay abreast of developments in proceedings and fully shoulder the responsibility of prosecuting crimes.

Contacts

CEO, Attorney Lin Yung-sung
Deputy CEO, Wang Shih-szu