Judicial Reform Amidst the Wave of Openness

The JRF promoted the citizen-led judicial reform movement and held a public vote to select the top 10 judicial issues of greatest concern to the Taiwanese public. After nearly a month of intensive preparations, assessment meetings were recently held to analyze the root causes of these 10 judicial issues.

The biggest difference between the meetings held during the citizen-led judicial reform movement and past judicial reform conferences lies in the composition of participating experts. The meetings of the citizen judicial reform movement adopted a composition where "non-legal professionals constitute the majority," requiring that non-legal professionals make up more than half of the attendees at every meeting. This is to ensure that the voices of public dissatisfaction with judicial personnel can be communicated during problem analysis, and that negative perceptions of the judicial system can be accurately analyzed and translated into corresponding judicial issues. Because non-legal professionals participate, they can constantly urge legal professionals during discussions to refrain from using overly abstruse legal jargon and disjointed logic, ensuring that non-legal professionals are no longer excluded from the process of judicial reform.

For each issue, the JRF sought out experts suitable for the analysis. For example, regarding the 5th most-voted issue: "Vulnerable groups need more assistance in the justice system," representatives who have long advocated for the rights of foreign migrant workers were invited to attend. Following this meticulous process of finding analytical experts, the participating experts included judges, prosecutors, attorneys, police officers, indigenous representatives, netizens, media professionals, teachers, and victims of judicial injustices.

The advantages of this diverse composition, where non-legal professionals form the majority, were clearly demonstrated during problem discussions. For instance, when discussing the issue "Some police officers are law enforcers yet do not abide by the law themselves"—with the aim of curbing the excessive use of coercive force by police during duty and establishing post-incident accountability mechanisms—legal professionals hoped that police officers would wear name tags while on duty, so that members of the public would not be unable to identify officers if they subsequently wished to hold them accountable for unlawful enforcement. The police representatives present explained that having an identification number on an officer's uniform was sufficient, and that officers also presented their identification documents while on duty; their reluctance to wear name tags stemmed from concerns over personal privacy infringement or suffering retaliatory actions after pursuing crimes. Non-legal participants immediately raised the public perspective on this matter, arguing that members of the public could not possibly remember an officer's identification number while on duty, making it difficult to establish an accountability mechanism with just a number. Furthermore, since both judges and bank tellers can display their names to take responsibility for the official duties or public authority they exercise, stronger reasons are required for the police to be exempt from this obligation.

Amidst intense, back-and-forth questioning and answering, the contours of judicial reform began to take shape. Citizens voted on the judicial issues in their hearts, enabling legal professionals to understand the most pressing issues in contemporary judicial reform, attempt analysis, and propose preliminary reform ideas. Stakeholders related to these judicial issues explained the difficulties in executing such reforms and publicly defended their positions. Coupled with the timely participation of non-legal opinions, roles with differing stances intensified critical thinking and pooled collective wisdom during judicial activities, enabling judicial reform to comprehensively address all dimensions and win the public's trust under the greatest possible scope of reform.

Apart from the participation of non-legal professionals, another highlight of the meetings was that, living in an era of advanced internet and social media, the meeting format also kept pace with the times. Meeting materials were published online prior to the sessions for public review and feedback. The meetings conducted high-quality "live streaming online." The benefit of live streaming is that it holds every participant accountable for their statements and opinions. Without backroom deals, parochialism can be dismantled, and judicial reform is no longer shrouded in secrecy. During the live broadcast, netizen comments were also simultaneously opened, allowing netizens to pose real-time questions to the participating experts or provide their own opinions and thoughts on judicial issues. This achieved the goal of broadening participation and incidentally brought about the benefits of common-folk legal education.

No one can resist the wave of openness, nor can any social issue be excluded from it. We call upon the government to ensure that the National Judicial Reform Conference to be convened in October starts from the perspective of the people, embodies the spirit of transparency, and advances judicial reform through expanded participation. The ultimate purpose of the conference is to create opportunities to break away from the judicial sector's past reform methods of mutual confrontation, allowing society to initiate dialogue and thereby forge a maximum consensus. Driving such a consensus toward implementation in a permanent judicial reform mechanism is the only way to restore public trust in the judiciary.