Inarticulable Opinions Deserve Judicial Reform's Priority: May 23 Yilan District Court Event
Last edited: 2026-07-27
On the 11th day of the "Cycling Island Tour: Express Delivering Local Judicial Reform Opinions" campaign, the cycling team arrived at the Yilan District Court. The pristine landscapes along the way are the fruit of Yilan County's past refusal to favor conglomerates and foreign businesses, listening instead to the faint voices of local farmers and residents while upholding environmental protection as its founding county principle. Within the judicial system, however, environmental protection and the voices of vulnerable groups are frequently overlooked; even more marginalized groups—such as the hearing- and speech-impaired, intellectually disabled, and psychosocially disabled—cannot even voice their concerns. Furthermore, the LGBT community, constrained by societal stigma, finds it hard to speak out. In her 520 inaugural speech, President Tsai Ing-wen announced that a National Judicial Reform Conference would be convened this October. The JRF believes that the upcoming National Judicial Reform Conference must guarantee channels for these vulnerable groups to make their voices heard, and listen to the opinions they are unable to articulate.
Hu Sheng-hsiang, Secretary-General of the Taiwan Queer Rights Promotion Alliance, Pan Shih-hsin, Chairperson, and members of the Yilan County Association of Friends of Psychiatric Rehabilitation came forward to speak for people with disabilities and the LGBT community. They explained the predicaments faced by vulnerable groups in the justice system, demanded that judicial authorities implement the judicial protection services prescribed under Article 84 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, and called for the upcoming National Judicial Reform Conference to "allocate guaranteed seats for persons with disabilities." For the statement materials, please refer to Attachment 1.
Sun Po-jung, founder of the Alliance to Protect Yilan's Pristine Mountains and Waters, participated on behalf of Jiaoxi residents as an independent participant in the administrative litigation concerning the Environmental Impact Assessment Act for "Jiaoxi Farglory Yueh Lai Hotel v. Executive Yuan Environmental Protection Administration," which is adjudicated by the Taipei High Administrative Court. The most recent hearing took place on May 9. This David-versus-Goliath judicial action highlights the difficulties local residents face in resorting to the judiciary to protect the environment. Most places in need of environmental protection are far from cities; however, the High Administrative Court with jurisdiction over environmental litigation is established only in the three major metropolitan areas of Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung. Local residents wishing to participate in litigation must travel long distances to arrive, bearing much greater costs compared to metropolitan-based conglomerates and foreign businesses just to protect their homes. Sun Po-jung called on the judiciary to strengthen its commitment to eastern Taiwan and improve the quality of justice in eastern Taiwan. For the statement materials, please refer in detail to Attachment 2.
Attachment 1 The National Judicial Reform Conference Should Allocate Guaranteed Seats for Persons with Disabilities
By Hu Sheng-hsiang, Secretary-General of the Taiwan Queer Rights Promotion Alliance
I am a psychosocially disabled gay man holding a moderate disability certificate, meaning I possess multiple identities as a gay person (gender identity) and a psychosocial person with a disability (socially vulnerable identity). I deeply regret that today (05/23), which is my first wedding anniversary, I still have to show up to protest due to governmental issues, which shows that the new government still has a considerable amount of work to do.
Current policies cause persons with disabilities to face various barriers, but these very barriers also make daily life for disabled individuals as difficult as clearing levels in a video game. Taipei is a resource-rich city. Yet, even in such a resource-abundant city, disabled people face numerous barriers, let alone in counties and cities with relatively fewer resources.
Currently, people with disabilities often require various forms of assistance when attending court or appearing at hearings, such as barrier-free environments for physically disabled persons, sign language interpretation and speech-to-text services for the hearing- and speech-impaired, greater patience and assistance from judges and prosecutors for intellectually disabled persons, and trusted friends accompanying them along with greater patience from judges and prosecutors in listening to psychosocially disabled persons. However, according to the provisions of Article 84 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, to what extent have judicial protection services actually been implemented in practice? I believe they have not been fully implemented. For instance, if a hearing-impaired person does not know sign language and is illiterate, I ask: do judges and prosecutors know how to communicate with them to safeguard their right to litigation? I believe they do not!
Moreover, President Tsai Ing-wen proclaimed to the world during her 520 inauguration ceremony: "We will convene a National Judicial Reform Conference this October." But I would like to ask President Tsai: "As members of society, persons with disabilities are naturally qualified to participate in the National Judicial Reform Conference. However, resource disparities cause some disabled individuals to face obstacles in coming forward to express their needs—such as environmental barriers, a lack of accompanying assistance, and even the urban-rural divide, which prevents some disabled persons from using or knowing how to use the internet, compounded by varying resources among county and city governments that leave some disabled individuals unable or unequipped to use the internet. I ask: how do you intend to collect their opinions, or do you consider their opinions unimportant? Furthermore, if you agree that persons with disabilities possess citizenship, are you willing to provide guaranteed seats at the National Judicial Reform Conference to safeguard the rights and interests of persons with disabilities?"
In addition, coming out as gay is not easy in itself. Some current judges and prosecutors lack gender awareness, leading closeted gay individuals to suffer the fate of being outed simply because they have to appear in court. Alternatively, even for outed gay individuals, encountering judges and prosecutors devoid of gender awareness leaves them with grievances they cannot articulate. Therefore, I sincerely hope that the courts can develop a greater understanding of gay people rather than judging them through their own subjective awareness, and avoid causing discomfort and fear to the parties involved.
Our people have always anticipated judicial justice, and even fairness in the adjudication process. In particular, defendants face certain problems when confronting trials. In fact, their rights are overlooked or stripped away. During the trial, some defendants feel the pressure of the presumption of guilt before prosecutors or judges, and do not dare to make full statements or elaborate further. This is definitely not a sign of progress and civilization. Regardless of whether a defendant is ultimately guilty, they should be given ample opportunity to make full statements or defend themselves.
During the secondary interrogation process, ordinary people often face pressure from prosecutors and therefore dare not make extended statements, which is tantamount to prosecutors covertly forcing defendants to forfeit their opportunity to defend themselves. But what if the case involves regulations containing terms related to "children and youths"? For example, the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act. I believe that not only will prosecutors not give defendants the opportunity to make additional statements, but to some extent this also aligns with public perception—determining that violating regulations containing terms related to children and youths constitutes conclusive evidence of guilt, while ignoring legislative flaws in current regulations and numerous practical issues. These include the use of vague wording in statutory provisions (such as "insinuation"), police subjectively determining intent to engage in sex work as illegal (colloquially known as transferring cases based on perceived intent), police entrapment operations, police inducing defendants to utter keywords indicating consent to sex work (such as transaction amounts), and police interrupting audio and video recordings during police interviews because the records did not meet police requirements, thereby infringing upon rights.
During secondary interrogations, many defendants not only face tremendous pressure from prosecutors, but also suffer from social stigma and labeling, leaving them with no opportunity to make statements during interrogations, causing judicial mistakes to compound step by step. Therefore, we sincerely hope that judges and prosecutors are willing to take the time to understand and listen to defendants' feelings and statements, and not become accomplices to the stagnation of judicial reform.
Attachment 2 When Development Meets the Judiciary
By Sun Po-jung, Moderator of the Yilan Public Issues Discussion Board
Before encountering the Jiaoxi Farglory case last year (2015), I personally had virtually no concept of administrative appeals and administrative litigation. I am deeply grateful for the continuous assistance of lawyer Chan Shun-kuei and the legal team at Yuan-Chen Law Offices. Even to this day, I am still learning as I take each step.
In recent years, Yilan and the Hualien-Taitung region have faced land developments of all scales. In many urban planning explanatory meetings I attended, I witnessed the bewildered and helpless gazes of elderly villagers, forming a sharp contrast with elected representatives on the podium eloquently and repeatedly chanting that "the locality needs development."
The vast majority of villagers lack relevant concepts regarding the administrative procedures and substantive appropriateness of urban planning, land development, and environmental development, and do not even know how they are stakeholders in relation to their own rights and interests. Naturally, they are also completely unaware of subsequent avenues for administrative remedy. Due to this asymmetry in information and relevant knowledge, villagers are easily misled and instigated, often creating a stark divergence between those on the podium and those in the audience, which in reality inflicts great harm on both sides.
However, under developments hoisted with the banner of "local love for development," villagers often find themselves with nowhere to turn when they discover their rights have been infringed, lacking professional and neutral legal counsel to consult. For controversial developments, it is also difficult to ascertain where to seek help, potentially causing them to miss the window for administrative appeals or litigation.
After encountering the Jiaoxi Farglory case, "homework" regarding administrative appeals and litigation followed one after another. Now that the case has entered administrative litigation, I have begun having to raise funds everywhere for lawyer retainer fees and travel far to Taipei to attend court hearings at the High Administrative Court. Compared to Farglory's well-funded legal team, our grassroots David-versus-Goliath war against the development monster poses a major challenge to both financial resources and stamina, not to mention whether we can ever know if a conglomerate with such exceptionally close political-business ties and a repeated offense record might manipulate various links behind the scenes.
Presently, various local developments frequently employ tactics such as parceling out land developments and walking the legal tightrope to evade environmental impact assessments, or proceeding through BOT and ROT models, catching local residents off guard so that they often only realize it when construction has already begun.
The judiciary should not only provide rural areas and local vulnerable residents with more legal consultation and particularly relevant assistance for public interest litigation, but also offer related legal consultation services during urban planning and development explanatory meetings to eradicate various malpractices, infringement of people's rights, and environmental destruction caused by inappropriate development. Furthermore, resources should be actively invested in eastern Taiwan's administrative courts so that citizens do not have to endure arduous journeys and waste wealth and energy, while also addressing whether judges who might have zero understanding of actual local conditions can truly render reasonable verdicts for localities. Additionally, investigative agencies should proactively intervene to investigate whether public officials are illegally profiteering specific targets in many controversial development cases.
Today, the Spatial Planning Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act are gradually being implemented. Judicial units should simultaneously elevate their awareness of land justice and environmental justice, and it is also hoped that the government will fulfill its promises regarding transitional justice and achieve comprehensive reform of the judicial system and investigative agencies.
Attendees
CEO of JRF / Lawyer Kao Jung-chih
Director of JRF Taichung Office / Huang Wei-ting
Secretary-General of Taiwan Queer Rights Promotion Alliance / Hu Sheng-hsiang
Chairperson of Taiwan Queer Rights Promotion Alliance / Pan Shih-hsin
Founder of Alliance to Protect Yilan's Pristine Mountains and Waters / Sun Po-jung
Members of the Yilan County Association of Friends of Psychiatric Rehabilitation
This article is an AI-generated translation of the original Chinese text. In the event of any discrepancy, the Chinese version shall prevail.