The Quality of Legal Profession Self-Governance Determines the Success or Failure of Judicial Reform

Judge Lin Chou-fu won the highest votes to be elected as a member of the 4th Judges Evaluation Commission and was subsequently elected by all members as the convener. Due to his previous involvement in the case where former Supreme Court Judge Hsiao Yang-kuei lobbied for his son's acquittal in a hit-and-run case, it sparked public controversy and he ultimately resigned. This validates the "subtle and profound" philosophy in the Tao Te Ching: "If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand; if you want to weaken something, you must first allow it to strengthen."

According to an op-ed by the "Judges for Judicial Reform" alliance, a senior judge took Lin Chou-fu around to lobby for votes. Coupled with the fact that judicial administrative units failed to fully disclose candidate information during the election administration, Lin Chou-fu was able to seize the highest number of votes. This demonstrates that the judges' community lacks historical memory of the dark side of the judiciary! Judges Huang Jui-hua, Lin Meng-huang, and Chen Chin-hsien further issued a warning: if the judicial personnel and election culture do not change, judges lack clear self-awareness of their roles and have insufficient spirit of self-discipline and self-respect, and if "superiors" are allowed to use resources and power to operate and influence elections or the results of resolutions, it will turn the results of judicial reform into an unimaginable disaster!

In fact, the issues of incomplete disclosure of candidate information and monopolization by "certain individuals" are also identical in past lawyer representative elections. The election bulletin only lists the candidate's ballot number, name, date of birth, gender, address, education, and experience, while the platform column has always been conspicuously absent. Local bar associations send out letters urging votes to demand members support candidates recommended by their respective associations, which still cannot escape the pattern of mobilizing organizational votes, regional votes, and personal-favor votes. It has even been witnessed that a heavy hitter in central Taiwan initiated ticket-allocating by "surname"! 

Representative Elections Playing in Small Circles

According to the current "Regulations for the Election of Lawyer Representatives to the Judges Selection Committee, Judges Evaluation Commission, and Prosecutors Evaluation Commission," lawyer representatives not only have a threshold for years of practice, but nomination power is also controlled by local bar associations rather than being open to all lawyers. It has always been tied to the seniority of local bar associations and the Taiwan Bar Association (TBA). Those who can run for lawyer representatives usually operate "ticket allocation" step by step through local bar association directors and supervisors -> executive directors and supervisors -> TBA member representatives -> TBA directors and supervisors -> executive directors and supervisors -> chairperson or vice chairperson of local bar associations or the TBA. It is blatantly a "small circle" election!

In addition to judges, prosecutors, and lawyers respectively voting to elect representatives, the Judges (Prosecutors) Evaluation Commission also has 4 seats representing scholars and socially impartial individuals, which are appointed by the President of the Judicial Yuan (Minister of Justice). However, looking at the list of members for the 4th Judges (Prosecutors) Evaluation Commission, there is also doubt here: the President and the Minister unexpectedly and coincidently appointed Professor Ko Ko-chung, causing him to simultaneously serve as a member of both committees. Furthermore, upon closer inspection, both the President and the Minister come from National Taiwan University's law background, and the professors they appointed—Ko Ko-chung, Wang Cheng-chia, Liao Ta-ying, Lin Chih-chieh, and Lin Ming-hsin—are all legal scholars who graduated from the same school and department. This is excessively concentrated and singular, clearly violating the resolution of last year's National Judicial Reform Conference: to increase the number of representatives who are external members and socially impartial individuals in the Judges (Prosecutors) Evaluation Commission, and their sources should strive for diversification and heterogeneity.

Reflecting on the past and present, former President of the Judicial Yuan Lai Hao-min appointed the late Dr. Lin Ping-wen, former president of National Cheng Kung University Hospital, as a member of the 1st Judges Evaluation Commission, which was truly eye-opening. Prosecutor representative Chen Jui-jen, a member of the same term, recalled at the Fourth Meeting of the Third Division of the National Judicial Reform Conference how Dr. Lin judged good judges and bad judges from the perspective of "medical malpractice," which was very inspiring. Dr. Lin Ping-wen was the author's eldest cousin who tragically passed away prematurely in the prime of his life in 2012, and this is recorded in loving memory.
As the ancients said: The thickness or thinness of a country's customs depends on the aspirations of one or two people's hearts. Whether interpreted from the Constitution, the Judges Act, or the Attorney Regulation Act, legal professionals (judges, prosecutors, lawyers) shoulder the mission of maintaining and promoting democratic rule of law. One of the directions of judicial reform is to strengthen the democratization of internal self-governance for judges and prosecutors. Thus it can be said today: The rise and fall of our country's democratic rule of law, and the success or failure of judicial reform, depend on the quality of the legal profession's democratic self-governance! The electoral reform of legal professional representatives and the rectification of the electoral climate are truly aspects of judicial reform that cannot be overlooked! 

※ This article was published in the Apple Daily on 2018/1/27