Miko, How Are You Doing Now?

During the interrogation, the prosecutor stated to the defendant, 'You're just going to go to prison,' 'Don't come here acting like a victim,' and 'You'll only cause me trouble, so I don't have a pleasant look on my face when I see you.' This clearly centered on his personal biases, showing prejudgment and forgetting the impartiality required of a prosecutor. His defense—that he was engaged in legal education—is unconvincing.

On April 10, 2014, the Disciplinary Court of the Judicial Yuan sentenced Prosecutor Lin Kuan-yu of the Taipei District Prosecutors Office to a one-and-a-half-year suspension from office. This was the first successful disciplinary case resulting from a request for individual evaluation submitted by the JRF after the implementation of the Judges Act. However, nearly three years had passed since we received the grievance in this case.

One day in July 2011, Miko came to the JRF and shyly asked, 'What if I am wronged? But the prosecutor said that just looking at my face makes him want to send me to prison. Can you at the JRF help me?' We answered that we could, but we needed the case files and the recording disc of the investigative interrogation. Miko asked again, 'How can I get those?' We explained the relevant procedures, and Miko said, 'Why do I need to hire a lawyer to review the files and copy the disc? If I had the money to hire a lawyer, the prosecutor wouldn't have dared to treat me this way.'

Two months later, Miko brought the case files and the disc, explaining that he had sold his inherited land share for a meager NT$150,000 to hire a lawyer to obtain these materials, hoping the JRF could help. The interrogation disc captured Prosecutor Lin Kuan-yu's appalling behavior in full, and we even nicknamed him the 'Angry Bird Prosecutor,' deciding to request an individual evaluation on Miko's behalf.

At that time, the individual evaluation system under the Judges Act had not yet taken effect. Nevertheless, we contacted the Ministry of Justice to discuss whether cases could be accepted prematurely before the implementation date of January 6, 2012, or if evaluation organization authorization procedures could be conducted in advance. The official response was that the evaluation members had not yet taken office, so neither case acceptance nor advance authorization was possible. Miko asked with great disappointment whether the JRF could actually help or not.

We explained the subsequent steps: we would apply to the Ministry of Justice for evaluation organization authorization in accordance with the Judges Act; upon receiving the authorization certificate, we would request an individual evaluation from the Prosecutor Evaluation Commission; if the evaluation was established, the Ministry of Justice would refer the case to the Control Yuan for deliberation; if the Control Yuan impeached the prosecutor, the matter would be submitted to the Disciplinary Court for adjudication; and only after the Disciplinary Court rendered a judgment would we know whether the reported prosecutor would be disciplined.

After listening carefully to the provisions of the Judges Act, Miko coolly remarked, 'Isn't this harder than Kuan Kung passing through five passes and slaying six generals? That means even if I am wrongfully imprisoned and released, Lin Kuan-yu still won't face any consequences. Do your best!' Afterward, Miko lost contact with us.

Over the past two years and more, the JRF has successively received more than a dozen grievance cases against Prosecutor Lin Kuan-yu, filed multiple complaints, and held several press conferences criticizing the prosecutorial community for shielding and protecting its own. Now that the disciplinary action has succeeded, whenever I think of Miko, I still feel a heavy heart because I do not know if we truly helped him. Instead, it was his courage to step forward that has spared many people from being tormented by an unsuitably qualified prosecutor—a truly boundless meritorious deed.

As for Prosecutor Lin Kuan-yu himself, judging from the defense arguments cited in the judgment, he still glibly emphasizes that he was 'engaged in legal education,' 'conducting restorative justice,' 'preventing vulnerable people under the law from being victimized,' and 'conducting meticulous factual investigations' when adopting such 'interrogation methods.' Allowing him to resume his position as a prosecutor after a year and a half is truly not a wise decision by the Disciplinary Court.

To date, the JRF has reported 12 prosecutors for poor demeanor, with only 1 successful disciplinary case and 6 cases still under review; however, there are 5 cases where the Evaluation Commission decided not to initiate an evaluation—meaning disciplinary failures. This shows that the standards between officials and citizens are worlds apart. In video games, the Angry Bird charges around recklessly and is quite cute. Encountering a reckless prosecutor in the real world, however, is quite tragic. Even more tragically, there are quite a few such prosecutors in Taiwan. We hope more Mikos will bravely step forward so that Angry Bird prosecutors will no longer fly about unchecked!