The Human Rights Philosophy of Judicial Yuan Grand Justice Nominees Must Withstand Dual Scrutiny from Both Official and Civil Society

The judicial power has always been the cornerstone of the state's constitutional system and social equity and justice. In the past, the Grand Justices of our country's Judicial Yuan not only played a crucial role in Taiwan's democratization and constitutional development, but also contributed significantly to the function of interpreting the Constitution to protect human rights. Moreover, the term of the incumbent Grand Justices will expire on October 2 of this year (2003), and the next batch of Grand Justices (including the President and Vice President of the Judicial Yuan) will be the first "constitutional guardians" nominated and appointed in accordance with the new system under Article 5 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution. Based on the above realization, the Judicial Reform Foundation, together with six other organizations—including the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the Taiwan Law Society, the Judicial Reform Foundation, the Taipei Bar Association, and others—initiated and planned the "Alliance for Citizens' Supervision of Judicial Yuan Grand Justice (including President and Vice President) Nominees" (hereinafter referred to as the Alliance for Citizens' Supervision of Grand Justices) in mid-December of last year (2002). Through the spontaneous and autonomous observation and supervision of civil society, they hoped to urge the President and the Legislative Yuan to fulfill their duties of nomination, appointment, and review and consent, while also awakening the public's attention to the functions of the Judicial Yuan Grand Justices, thereby popularizing constitutional concepts and human rights awareness.

Starting in late April of this year, in order to objectively evaluate unsuitable nominees for Grand Justices (including the President and Vice President of the Judicial Yuan), the Alliance for Citizens' Supervision of Grand Justices specially formed an evaluation committee consisting of fifteen members. They conducted investigations, research, evaluations, and discussions one by one regarding the relevant backgrounds and data of each Grand Justice nominee. Finally, through a secret ballot, with a vote exceeding two-thirds of all fifteen members, Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo was evaluated as an unsuitable nominee for Grand Justice and Vice President of the Judicial Yuan.

According to the "Evaluation Report on Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo as Unsuitable for Grand Justice and Vice President of the Judicial Yuan" (hereinafter referred to as the Evaluation Report) published by the Alliance for Citizens' Supervision of Grand Justices on August 17 of this year, the primary reason for the Alliance's evaluation of Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo as an unsuitable nominee is that "during his tenure as Minister of Justice, Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo had serious flaws in approving the execution of the death penalty, demonstrating his insufficient awareness of human rights protection." Regarding this point, a detailed discussion is set forth below from the perspective of the investigation report issued by the Control Yuan on December 1, 1999 (hereinafter referred to as the Control Yuan Investigation Report) and the Evaluation Report written by the Alliance for Citizens' Supervision of Grand Justices:

According to the Control Yuan Investigation Report: "The procedures of the Ministry of Justice in approving the execution of the death penalty for death row inmates Chou Hsün-shan, Chuang Ch'ing-chih, Jonathan Maala Burgos, Liu Yen-lung, and T'ang Ming-hsiung 'indeed had flaws.'" Among them, the three individual cases of Chou Hsün-shan, Chuang Ch'ing-chih, and the Philippine national Burgos occurred during Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo's tenure as Minister of Justice. This clearly shows that Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo's handling of the death penalty approval procedures during his tenure as Minister of Justice was indeed open to question. Taking the Chou Hsün-shan case as an example, the Control Yuan Investigation Report explicitly points out: "On the very day defendant Chou Hsün-shan received the judgment document, the Supreme Prosecutors Office submitted the relevant case files to the Ministry of Justice, leaving the defendant's defense counsel virtually no possibility to file extraordinary appeals or retrials. The execution of the death penalty was drafted by the handler on October 14, passed through various levels of supervisors in the Ministry of Justice, and approved the next day by the Minister (namely, Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo). Within the span of a single day, how could one expect and believe that the Minister of Justice and supervisors at all levels had indeed thoroughly reviewed the judgment and related case files and checked whether there were grounds for retrial or extraordinary appeals?" (Note: The Chou case went through a fifth remand and retrial, involving as many as fourteen volumes of case files.) In addition, the circumstances surrounding the execution of the death penalty for Chuang Ch'ing-chih and the Philippine national Burgos were virtually identical to the Chou Hsün-shan case. The Control Yuan Investigation Report also points out: "The Ministry of Justice's excessively rapid execution of the death penalty" left the family members and defense counsel of the death row inmates "with virtually no possibility of filing extraordinary appeals or retrials." "The legislative purpose of requiring the Ministry of Justice to order and approve the execution of the death penalty is to respect the right to life, so that this capital punishment, which cannot be reversed or remedied once executed, may be carried out through the most rigorous and cautious mechanism." However, during his tenure as Minister of Justice, Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo not only "rendered the review procedure formalistic, but the rapidity of his review is difficult to absolve from the suspicion of being eager to execute, representing a major flaw in the protection of human rights."

Regarding the above matters, the Alliance for Citizens' Supervision of Grand Justices pointed out in its Evaluation Report: "The execution of the death penalty concerns the deprivation of the right to life and belongs to a punishment that cannot be reversed once executed. It ought to be handled with caution. In modern rule-of-law countries, it is rarely heard that within one day after all avenues of judicial relief are exhausted, the Minister of Justice rapidly approves the execution of the death penalty, or that the shocking incident occurs where the death penalty is executed before the defense counsel has even received the final judicial judgment documents. However, Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo, the then-Minister of Justice, exhibited numerous questionable aspects in the approval procedures for executing death row inmates such as Chou Hsün-shan, Chuang Ch'ing-chih, and the Philippine national Burgos."; In particular, "Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo's Master of Laws thesis back then took the abolition of the death penalty as its research topic. However, when Minister Ch'eng held the ultimate power over death penalty executions, he acted with such lack of caution, leaving the outside world deeply worried about whether his convictions in upholding academic principles and human rights are firm." Furthermore, "As can be known from the records of the aforementioned Control Yuan Investigation Report: in October 1998, Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo was well aware that after he approved the death execution procedure for Chou Hsün-shan, it had already caused an uproar among civil human rights groups; yet he 'pressed on,' adopting the exact same extremely rapid processing model to approve the death execution cases of the Philippine national Burgos and Chuang Ch'ing-chih in November and December of the same year respectively," and "his perfunctory attitude displayed toward the life and death of death row inmates is truly difficult to accept.">

Synthesizing the opinions of the official Control Yuan report and the civil society organization evaluation report, we cannot help but question whether Mr. Ch'eng Chung-mo, who has such serious lapses in his human rights record, is suitable to serve in the position of a Grand Justice who defends the fundamental rights of the people? If the Judicial Yuan Grand Justice nominees (including the President and Vice President) nominated by the President cannot withstand the dual scrutiny of official and civil society in terms of the concept and implementation of human rights protection, how can we expect the relevant individuals in the future to act as positive promoters in the development of our country's democracy, rule of law, and constitutional human rights?