Proposals for Reforming the Individual Evaluation System

More than five years have passed since the implementation of the individual evaluation system for judges and prosecutors in January 2012, yet its effectiveness has repeatedly been questioned by the public. As an entity that requests individual evaluations and as a reform group that has long monitored the supervision of judges and prosecutors, the Judicial Reform Foundation believes that the design of the current evaluation system indeed has numerous flaws [1], and hereby proposes the following reform recommendations for the reference of the 3rd Division of the Presidential Office's National Conference on Judicial Reform.

Allowing Citizens to Directly Request Evaluations

Under the current Judges Act, if citizens wish to file complaints against judges or prosecutors for illegal conduct or dereliction of duty, they cannot directly request an evaluation from the Judges Evaluation Committee or the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee; instead, they must do so indirectly through specific agencies or organizations. Such institutional design not only reflects the ostrich mentality of the Evaluation Committees in evading communication and dialogue with the public, but it also "outsources" the official responsibility that should have been borne on the front lines—namely, receiving public requests, screening and identifying unfit judges and prosecutors, and further fleshing out the constitutive elements of "unfit judges and prosecutors." However, as "subcontractors" at the back end of the Evaluation Committees, either the judicial and prosecutorial systems—which are highly closed and whose self-regulatory decisions are frequently questioned as "protecting their own"—or civil society organizations that are relatively resource-deficient and lack investigative powers (e.g., the Judicial Reform Foundation, bar associations) were anticipated by the legislators at the enactment of the Judges Act to be susceptible to public misunderstandings and "frivolous litigation" regarding the evaluation system. Strict barriers were thus designed to "block" public requests for evaluations, which instead has generated more suspicion among the public and the complained-of judges and prosecutors toward the individual evaluation system, completely failing to enhance public trust in the judiciary.

Therefore, we believe that the future reform of the evaluation system must allow citizens to directly request evaluations. Only by sorting through the accumulated mass of public request cases can we gradually construct appropriate evaluation standards, thereby effectively integrating current self-regulatory and external-regulatory mechanisms and refining the supervision of judges and prosecutors.

Legally Guaranteeing the Evaluation Receiving Agencies' Independent Exercise of Powers

Although the current Judges Evaluation Committee and Prosecutor Evaluation Committee boast that more than half of their members are external members, which helps them break away from institutional parochialism during deliberations and eliminates concerns of mutual protection, their organizations are established under the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice, respectively. Their required funds and staff must be budgeted and supported by the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice, lacking independent organizational structures and budgets. A simple comparison of the staffing allocations of the Judges Evaluation Committee and the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee reveals that operational capacities vary drastically depending on the amount of resources the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice are willing to invest in evaluations.

Comparison of Resources and Staffing Allocation Between the Judges Evaluation Committee and the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee

	Judges Evaluation Committee	Prosecutor Evaluation Committee
Staffing Allocation	1 Executive Secretary (concurrently held by an official of the Judicial Yuan); 4 Administrative Personnel (full-time); 1 to 2 Alternative Military Service Personnel	1 Executive Secretary (concurrently held by an official of the Ministry of Justice); Staff personnel (concurrently handled by personnel from the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Justice, exact headcount unknown); No Alternative Military Service Personnel
Independent Office	Yes (located in the Second Office Building of the Judicial Yuan)	No (operates within the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Justice)

To ensure the independence and impartiality of the deliberations by the Judges Evaluation Committee and the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee, as well as to ensure operational momentum, we advocate that legislation must guarantee independent budget allocations for both committees. They should be able to compile budgets according to their own operational needs and autonomously hire full-time staff to assist part-time evaluation members in gathering information, conducting case analysis, and even drafting initial opinions. Otherwise, if the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice are left to fetter the evaluation practices of the Evaluation Committees through budget cuts, granting the Evaluation Committees the power to initiate cases ex officio or even strengthening the binding force of their resolutions will still not help the evaluation functions come into play.

Meanwhile, considering the massive volume of incoming cases that may arise after allowing citizens to directly request evaluations, and to maximize the independence of personnel and budgeting, an "Evaluation Foundation" should be one of the options worth considering.

"Comprehensive Evaluation" Is Essential to Fundamentally Improve the Professional Quality of Judges and Prosecutors

Although the current Judges Act designs a comprehensive assessment system for judges and prosecutors, the assessment standards are quite mechanical and formalistic, and the implementation methods suffer from numerous problems such as low questionnaire recovery rates. It is therefore doubtful whether it can effectively supervise judges and prosecutors.

We believe that the occurrence of illegal or derelict conduct by judges and prosecutors is also a warning sign regarding their working environment. A sound supervision system for judges and prosecutors must not only ensure the accountability of unfit judges and prosecutors, but also detect structural problems that may influence judges and prosecutors to engage in improper conduct (e.g., poor courtroom demeanor by a judge may stem from a lack of training in communication or listening skills) and further link this to systemic reforms. Only then can the professional quality of judges and prosecutors be fundamentally enhanced, and the latter is precisely where comprehensive evaluations can make a difference.

Therefore, we advocate that evaluation bodies possessing diverse perspectives must not only handle individual evaluations of judges and prosecutors, but also conduct "comprehensive evaluations" of judges and prosecutors, and re-examine current assessment items and implementation methods to strengthen the self-discipline of judges and prosecutors. Furthermore, because comprehensive evaluations involve shaping the profile of a good judge and a good prosecutor, a certain proportion of the members conducting comprehensive evaluations should be non-lawyers, bringing in more perspectives from the general public.

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[1] For an analysis of the flaws in the current evaluation system, please refer to the Judicial Reform Foundation, Observation Report on the Individual Evaluation System of the "Judges Act", 3rd Division, 3rd Meeting of the National Conference on Judicial Reform, Document No. 3-3 Discussion 3 (JRF Opinions).