Brief Notes: First Meeting of the Fourth Working Group of the Presidential Office's National White Paper on Judicial Reform

1. This meeting lasted for about 4 hours, with lawyers and non-lawyers speaking for roughly equal amounts of time. Chairperson Hsu Yü-hsiu actively integrated the agenda items. The meeting also released a significant amount of discussion materials in advance of the February 21 meeting, including preliminary discussions within this Working Group's LINE chat group^[1].

2. Pre-meeting controversies:

   1. Should we continue using the LINE group for preliminary discussions before meetings and publishing them online?

      Regarding this issue, about four members raised objections at the scene. The main reason was that LINE discussions might prevent members busy with work from participating in a timely manner, potentially marginalizing the opinions of some members. However, these objections were not endorsed by the chairperson, who instead asked the objectors to propose a better communication tool^[2]. As for how committee members would conduct preliminary research on respective sub-issues and invite relevant experts to report, a considerable degree of discussion had already taken place on LINE prior to this meeting.

   2. Steering Committee Black Box^[3]? All representatives recommended by the Taiwan Bar Association failed to be elected:

      Member Wu Kuang-lu specifically mentioned that regarding lawyer representative seats, they were clearly inferior to judges in each working group, who had 2 seats recommended by the Judicial Yuan, and prosecutors, who also had 2 seats recommended by the Ministry of Justice. However, the 2 lawyer seats were not recommended by the Taiwan Bar Association (TBA), indicating that the National White Paper on Judicial Reform did not respect the TBA, even though only the TBA can represent lawyers nationwide.

      The chairperson explained that this was a staff clerical error because the TBA is the unit responsible for electing lawyer representatives via ballot, not a recommending unit. However, the staff made a mistake and sent a notice asking the TBA to make recommendations, rendering those recommendation lists invalid rather than having recommendations ignored.

3. The system of public participation in trials will not be discussed in the first three meetings of this subcommittee:

   This meeting substantively discussed the system of public participation in trials, with the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice each giving 5-minute reports, and Member Lin Chao-chün submitting a written opinion of about 5 pages. However, it was evident that the content of the reports from the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice could not provide effective assistance to the working group members.

   Given the high controversy surrounding this issue, all members resolved to hold a public hearing on March 25 from 13:30 to 17:30. Members from all five groups will also be invited to attend, hear expert opinions, and hear reports from experts designated by the Judicial Yuan, the Ministry of Justice, and civil society organizations.

4. Working Group members to conduct preliminary research on various issues

   1. Division of labor among Group 4 members:

      1. Yen Chueh-an: 4-1 Training, Examination, and Professional Training of Legal Professionals
      2. Lin Chao-chün: 4-2-1 Public Participation in the Judiciary
      3. Lee Nien-chu: 4-2-2 Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms
      4. Chang Wei-chih: 4-3 An Open and Transparent Judiciary
      5. Kao Ju-ping: 4-4 A Judiciary Close to the People

   2. Working group members will conduct preliminary research on each issue beforehand, and following expert briefings, Q&A sessions will be used to highlight key points for the group.

5. Expected agenda for the next meeting

   1. The second meeting on 3/10 will discuss 4-3 "An Open and Transparent Judiciary" and 4-4 "A Judiciary Close to the People," especially "Reform of Judicial Documents and Judicial Language" and "Live-streaming of Court Trials."

   2. The third meeting on March 24 will discuss alternative dispute resolution mechanisms under 4-2 "Public Participation in the Judiciary" and 4-1 "Training, Examination, and Professional Training of Legal Professionals."

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Footnotes

Attachments

1. Minutes of the Fourth Working Group Meeting on 2017.02.13
2. [LINE] Chat Logs of the Fourth Working Group of the Judicial Reform National Conference
3. Response regarding the Steering Committee Black Box (?)
4. Issue Intent Drafting Q&A (Submitted by the Ministry of Justice) (Data No.-4-1-Disc-4)
5. Issue Intent Drafting Q&A (Submitted by the Judicial Yuan) (Data No.-4-1-Disc-4)
6. Issue Intent Drafting Q&A (Submitted by Assistant) (Data No.-4-1-Disc-4)
7. Written Opinion of Member Kao Ju-ping (Data No.-4-1-Disc-4)
8. Written Opinion of Member Yen Chueh-an (Data No.-4-1-Disc-4)
9. Non-prosecution / Public Participation in Prosecutorial Power, Public Participation in Trials / Centered on State Financial Conditions and Human/Material Resource Burdens (Ministry of Justice Opinion) (Data No.-4-1-Disc-5)
10. Public Participation in the Judiciary (Lay Participation and Jury Systems of Trial) (Judicial Yuan Opinion) (Data No.-4-1-Disc-5)
11. An Essay on the Reclassification of Public Participation in Trials — Beyond Lay Participation and Jury Systems (Draft) (Written Opinion of Member Lin Chao-chün) (Data No.-4-1-Disc-5)

Issue List of the Fourth Working Group

No.	Issue	Sub-issue	Meeting Conclusion
4-1	Training, Examination, and Professional Training of Legal Professionals	Review of national examinations or other selection methods for judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and legal officials Legal education reform Affiliation and merger of the Judges and Prosecutors Training Institute of the Ministry of Justice and the Judges Academy of the Judicial Yuan	4-1-1 Discussed directly by the Working Group Proposal 2-4-1 "Establishment of Specialized Courts" transferred from the Second Working Group; this group resolved not to merge it, but also passed a supplementary resolution that "it is possible the issue of 'establishing specialized courts' may be discussed in the future" 4-1-2 and 4-1-3 will not be merged, but will be discussed 4-1-1: Member Yen Chueh-an is responsible for research, finding relevant units, and experts to submit a report at the third meeting on March 24
4-2	Public Participation in the Judiciary	Public participation in the judiciary: non-prosecution, lay participation and jury systems of trial Strengthening alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to establish diversified dispute resolution channels, reduce litigation sources, and enhance judicial quality Establishing non-litigation medical dispute handling and mediation mechanisms preceded by expert appraisal, promoting rational doctor-patient dialogue, and extricating from dispute quagmires Establishing regular channels for public policy recommendations on the judiciary and judicial reform units	All 4-2 issues to be directly discussed in working group meetings Public hearing on the "Public Participation in Trials" system to be held on the afternoon of March 25 Issue 4-2-1 (Public Participation in Trials) to be researched by Member Lin Chao-chün Issue 4-2-2 (Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms) to be researched by Member Lee Nien-chu
4-3	An Open and Transparent Judiciary	Research and adoption of live-streaming of court trials Research and adoption of judicial openness and transparency Full disclosure of indictments, and inclusion of the prosecuting prosecutor's name in criminal judgments Information disclosure in the legal market to enhance the quality of legal services	Issue 4-3-1 ("Live-streaming of court trials") to be researched by Member Chang Wei-chih at the second meeting on March 10   Issue 4-3 to additionally include discussion on the transcript preparation method: "Audio and video recordings must also be accompanied by verbatim transcripts."
4-4	A Judiciary Close to the People	Reform of judicial documents and judicial language Strengthening civic legal education	Issue 4-4-1 ("Reform of judicial documents and judicial language") to be researched by Member Kao Ju-ping Members Tsai Wen-shih and Ch'en Ch'in-hsien to report on where the problems lie in current systems regarding the "reform of judicial documents and judicial language."