2007 Work Achievements

■ Revising the Judicial Reform Blueprint

• In coordination with the upcoming inauguration of the new President of the Judicial Yuan, we comprehensively reviewed judicial reform achievements and conducted necessary reviews and adjustments in response to the judicial reform blueprint proposed by our Foundation in 1999.

■ Enacting the Judges Act

• To establish a system for weeding out incompetent judges, we continuously promoted the legislative work of the Judges Act.
• Starting in September, we cooperated with representative civil society organizations across various fields to hold lobbying and publicity activities, thereby broadening social support.
• We positioned the enactment of the Judges Act as a primary judicial reform demand addressed to the new President of the Judicial Yuan.

■ Reforming the Prosecutorial System

• We continued to speak out against human rights violations committed by prosecutors during investigations.
• We promoted the enactment of a Prosecutors Act to build a prosecutorial legal framework that combats crime and protects human rights.
• We fought for adequate defense rights for lawyers during investigations to genuinely safeguard human rights.
• We supported the prosecution's efforts to crack down on organized crime and corruption while preventing interference.

■ Monitoring New Grand Justices Nominees

• We reactivated the "Civil Alliance for Monitoring Grand Justices Nominees of the Judicial Yuan," jointly formed by the Cheng-Chih Society, Taiwan Association for Law, Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Taiwan Bar Association, Taipei Bar Association, and our Foundation.
• We evaluated the interpretations rendered by incumbent Grand Justices.
• We issued evaluation reports on the nominees for new Grand Justices.
• We formed a delegation to visit the Legislative Yuan to monitor the entire process of the Legislative Yuan exercising its consent power in a rational and prudent manner.

■ Further Reforming the New Criminal Procedure System

• We promoted a mandatory lawyer-accompaniment system during the initial police-prosecution interrogations and the prosecutor's application for detention hearings.
• We strictly guarded against legislative retrogression and steadfastly supervised, from the public's perspective, the amendments to the criminal procedure system proposed by the Judicial Yuan.
• We supervised the Judicial Yuan in implementing the system of a single indictment (chiao-chu-chuang-i-pen-chu-i), which had been promised to the public to prevent arbitrary judicial actions.

■ Court Observation

• We recruited summer court observation volunteers and continued volunteer training courses.
• In cooperation with local bar associations and universities and colleges, we promoted court observations in courts across central and southern Taiwan.
• We added the courtroom performance of public prosecutors to court observation items as a basis for evaluating whether the new criminal procedure system is being implemented.
• We added court interpreters' performance to court observation items to conduct on-site observation and supervision of the implementation of the new interpreter system.

■ Reforming the Police System

• We supervised the National Police Agency in promoting concrete measures such as requiring uniformed police officers to wear name tags while on duty, and plainclothes police officers to present business cards to the public while on duty.

■ Individual Case Assistance

• We formed a defense team to assist in the retrial of the Ch'en Tzu-ch'iang (徐自強) case at the Taiwan High Court.
• Following another death sentence in the Su Chien-ho (蘇建和) case, we mobilized the Su Case Exoneration Task Force.

■ 2007 Doctoral Dissertation Grants (2 recipients)

• "A New Institutionalist Analysis of the Convergence and Conflict between Politics and the Judiciary: Taking the Reform of Taiwan's Prosecutorial System as an Example"
• "Colonial Rule, Legal Reception, and Folk Customs: The Family Property System of Han Chinese in Taiwan During the Japanese Colonial Period"

■ Legal Education

• We developed legal and educational perspectives on student rights.
• We revised the monograph "Teacher, You Can Do This Too!"
• We conducted advocacy and lectures on counseling and discipline in schools at all levels.
• We continued to monitor the current status of civics education in schools at all levels.
• We cooperated with schools at all levels and civil organizations to conduct legal education promotion and training courses.
• We cooperated with bar associations to conduct seed lawyer training.
• We cooperated with print and radio media through submissions or lectures to promote concepts such as the "Foundations of Democracy Series: Authority, Privacy, Responsibility, Justice" to the general public.
• The youth edition of the "Foundations of Democracy Series" was awarded the 2006 Human Rights Publication Award by the National Institute for Compilation and Translation.
• The public edition (originally the junior high school edition) of "Justice" in the "Foundations of Democracy Series" was published in September 2007.
• We held a selection event for documentary films on classroom teaching using the "Foundations of Democracy Series."

■ Legal Ethics Education

• In cooperation with Soochow University Law School and Shinbunto Publishing, we translated legal ethics books from the United States, Germany, and Japan, and planned the publication of the ten-volume "Judicial Reform Foundation Legal Ethics Series" as the foundation for promoting legal ethics education.

■ Publicity and Publication

• Our Foundation's website and e-newsletter underwent a complete redesign to facilitate public information retrieval and the dissemination of our Foundation's event information.
• We promoted subscriptions to the Judicial Reform Magazine to broaden social support.
• We prepared for the publication of the monograph "Grand Justices Give an Explanation 2."
• We continued to submit articles to newspapers and periodicals to timely express our Foundation's professional viewpoints.

■ Organizational Rooting

• We launched the Civil Law Academy to conduct volunteer training.
• We organized a two-day, one-night college student camp to cultivate newcomers for judicial reform.
• In cooperation with community colleges, we launched legal education courses.