Police Duty Reform—Don't Forget You Have the Right to Remain Silent

On June 24, 1996, the JRF discussed "police duties" on Formosa Ocean Radio. This was perhaps the inception of the JRF's concern for "police administration"!

In early 1999, after three or four consecutive years of demanding reforms targeting the courts and prosecutors' offices, the JRF turned its reform targets toward "police and investigative agencies" for the first time. Issue 19 of the Judicial Reform Journal featured "Re-thinking Police and Investigative Case Handling" as its special topic, publishing Attorney Ku Li-hsiung's article "Adjusting the Relationship Between Police and Investigative Agencies to Enhance the Quality of Police Case Handling" (ibid., p. 1). Additional articles included:

• "Judicial Police Investigation Discussed from the Perspective of Criminal Court Judges," Judge Wang Mei-ying, Issue 19, p. 3.
• "Abuse of Police Criminal Investigation Powers," Attorney Hsueh Chin-feng, ibid., p. 7.
• "Comparative Cases of Extortion by Torture," Attorney Fan Hsiao-ling, ibid., p. 9.

On the other hand, following the rendition of J.Y. Interpretation No. 535 (see Judicial Reform Journal, Issue 36, p. 43), the JRF not only published the draft and explanatory notes of the "Police Power Exercise Act" (Judicial Reform Journal, Issue 37, p. 14), but also featured "First Encounter with the Police Power Exercise Act!" as one of the special topics in Issue 37 of the Journal, concurrently publishing:

• "The Tomorrow of the Police Act," Ku Li-hsiung and Hsu Heng-ta (ibid., p. 11)
• "Key to Success or Failure?!—The Urgency of Enhancing Police Quality," Ma Tsai-chin (ibid., p. 26)
• "Inspections, the Rule of Law, and Human Rights," Hsueh Chin-feng (ibid., p. 28)

Furthermore, upon holding a press conference on May 13 to release the draft, it also published:

• "Achieving a Win-Win for the Public and Public Servants—Why We Need a 'Police Power Exercise Act'," (Judicial Reform Journal, Issue 38, p. 21)
• "Unveiling Police Misconduct," (ibid., p. 21)

The JRF has invested heavily in criminal human rights reform. However, it ultimately found that the most profound impact on criminal human rights comes from the police, who operate at the upstream stage of criminal cases. Without reforming the police system, there will always be gaps in Taiwan's criminal human rights. Therefore, in addition to judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, the judicial reform undertaken by the Foundation also incorporated police reform, which was the origin of the later establishment of the "Police Reform Alliance."