Blueprint for Judicial Reform—The Vision for Civil Judicial Reform

After three years of deliberation and debate, the Judicial Reform Foundation has finally released the first edition of its Blueprint for Judicial Reform. As a civil society organization, the reason for proposing a reform blueprint is our belief that reform must have direction and goals rather than being blind. In particular, reform movements must be open to public scrutiny and evaluation. Therefore, even though our current ideas may not yet be fully refined or concrete, we have bravely put them forward in the hope of gathering and interacting with opinions from all sectors to build a reform blueprint that better meets the public's needs.

The completion of the first edition of the Judicial Reform Blueprint demonstrates that the Foundation has reached a consensus on various judicial reform issues, while also indicating that there are areas where consensus has yet to be reached. We plan to address these one by one through further discussion, brainstorming, and exchange in future second and third editions. In addition to providing a more comprehensive account of the Foundation's various views on judicial reform moving forward, we also plan to rewrite this blueprint—which is primarily based on legal perspectives—into a "plain language edition" to promote it to more people who use the law but may not be familiar with it. We believe that only greater understanding can earn greater trust in the judiciary.

During the revision process, some perspectives have even been realized; for instance, the independence of the judicial budget was incorporated into the Constitution during the National Assembly's constitutional amendments the year before last. Legislation related to administrative litigation was also passed one by one in the Legislative Yuan this year through the joint efforts of the "Action Alliance for Promoting Administrative Remedy Legislation." Such results are naturally what we are happy to see, as they symbolize our step-by-step approach toward our reform goals. Therefore, this reform blueprint is not an all-inclusive, two-dimensional "reform bible," but rather a living, growing, and maturing vision for reform.

The National Judicial Reform Conference previously held by the Judicial Yuan also compiled its conference conclusions into three massive volumes, but they were subsequently shelved, marking the end of the National Judicial Reform Conference. The lesson understood by civil society organizations is that the emergence of a judicial reform blueprint does not guarantee the success of judicial reform; the key is whether there is a collective will to implement reform ideas and advance the reform movement. Therefore, the Judicial Reform Foundation regards this Judicial Reform Blueprint as a new starting point for promoting reform. Our future task is to forge a broader consensus and rally stronger forces to drive the reform movement forward until judicial reform is truly realized to build a fair, just, and trustworthy judiciary for the people.