What Can I Do When Encountering a Problematic Prosecutor Without a Influencer Lawyer to Speak Up for Me?

Recently, after securing a second-instance acquittal in a case he handled, Attorney Charles Huang (whose social media page is titled "Attorney Chuck, a Former Police Officer") stated on his personal social media accounts and to the media that, during an investigative hearing, Prosecutor Wu Yuqing of the Taiwan Shilin District Prosecutors Office responded to Huang's request to make further statements and his refusal to sign the interrogation record by saying:

"I am the prosecutor. I can write the record however I want." (News Link). In addition to speaking publicly through the media, Attorney Huang wrote in his post that he would see how the Taiwan Shilin District Prosecutors Office handled the matter and "consider whether to request a prosecutor evaluation." This once again brought the long-absent topic of the "prosecutor evaluation system" back into public discussion.

How Has "Prosecutor Evaluation" Operated Since the 2020 Amendments to the Judges Act?

Amendments to the Judges Act passed their third reading on July 17, 2019, and took effect on July 17, 2020. One of the most significant reforms under the amended Act was to allow individuals to directly request an evaluation of a judge or prosecutor by the relevant Evaluation Committee, without having to rely on a civil society organization to file the request on their behalf.

However, statistics in the JRF's "Four-Year Observation Report on the Amendments to the Judges Act" and seminar records, released in December 2024, showed that although 11 prosecutor evaluation requests had been upheld at that time, not a single one had resulted from a request filed by an individual member of the public. As the JRF's successive anniversary reports (First Anniversary Report, Second Anniversary Report) demonstrate, this success rate is not only lower than under the previous version of the law, when the JRF itself could act as an entity requesting an evaluation, but also falls far short of comparable mechanisms in the United Kingdom.

Page 7 of the Four-Year Observation Report on the Amended Judges Act: List of Cases Handled by the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee

(11 requests upheld; 9 requests not upheld)

#	Date of Decision	Case Number	Evaluation Result	Prosecutor Evaluated	Requesting Party
Request Upheld
1	April 16, 2020	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 103 of 2020	Request upheld. Disciplinary action was deemed unnecessary; the matter was referred to the Prosecutor Personnel Review Committee for deliberation.	Prosecutor Ning Xianwen	Taiwan Pingtung District Prosecutors Office
2	January 15, 2021	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 1 of 2020	Request upheld. Referred to the Disciplinary Court, with a recommendation of an admonition.	Prosecutor Yan Ruyu	Judicial Reform Foundation
3	November 22, 2021	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 59 of 2021	Request upheld. Referred to the Disciplinary Court.	Prosecutor Liu Yanjun	Taiwan Taipei District Prosecutors Office
4	July 7, 2023	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 5 of 2023	Request upheld. Disciplinary action was deemed unnecessary; the matter was referred to the Prosecutor Personnel Review Committee for deliberation.	Prosecutor Wang Tuzhi	Taiwan New Taipei District Prosecutors Office
5	July 7, 2023	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 6 of 2023	Request upheld. Referred to the Disciplinary Court.	Prosecutor Huang Jinqiu	Taiwan High Prosecutors Office
6	October 6, 2023	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 77 of 2023	Request upheld. Referred to the Disciplinary Court.	Prosecutor Huang Lingqiao	Taiwan Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office
7	November 3, 2023	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 81 of 2023	Request upheld. Referred to the Disciplinary Court.	Prosecutor Chen Liru	Taiwan Taipei District Prosecutors Office
8	May 3, 2024	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 182 of 2023	Request upheld. Referred to the Disciplinary Court.	Prosecutor Shi ○○	Taiwan Changhua District Prosecutors Office
9	May 3, 2024	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 6 of 2024	Request upheld. Referred to the Disciplinary Court.	Prosecutor Huang ○○	Taiwan Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office
10	July 5, 2024	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 55 of 2024	Request upheld. Referred to the Disciplinary Court.	Prosecutor Wei ○○	Taiwan Yunlin District Prosecutors Office
11	November 6, 2024	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 68 of 2024	Request upheld. Referred to the Disciplinary Court.	Prosecutor Wang ○○	Taiwan Nantou District Prosecutors Office
Request Not Upheld
1	September 22, 2021	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 77 of 2021	Request not upheld. Referred to the authority responsible for administrative supervision for appropriate action.	Prosecutor Zhao Qizheng	Kaohsiung Bar Association
2	November 19, 2021	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 192 of 2020	Request not upheld. Referred to the authority responsible for administrative supervision for appropriate action.	Prosecutor Liao Junhao	Member of the public
3	November 4, 2022	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 129 of 2021	Request not upheld. Referred to the authority responsible for administrative supervision for appropriate action.	Prosecutor Cai Menghong	Member of the public
4	March 18, 2022	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 65 of 2021	Request not upheld.	Prosecutor Huang ○	Member of the public
5	March 18, 2022	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 101 of 2021	Request not upheld.	Prosecutor Zheng ○○	Member of the public
6	August 4, 2023	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 115 of 2022	Request not upheld.	Prosecutor Wang ○○	Member of the public
7	October 6, 2023	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 53 of 2023	Request not upheld.	Prosecutor Zhang ○○	Member of the public
8	February 2, 2024	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 7 of 2023	Request not upheld.	Prosecutor Yu ○○	Member of the public
9	July 5, 2024	Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 167 of 2023	Request not upheld.	Prosecutor Huang ○○	Member of the public

According to the latest statistical data available as of the end of December 2025, the number of prosecutor evaluation requests upheld had risen to 13. However, the two additional cases were likewise initiated by prosecutorial authorities rather than individual members of the public: the case concerning Prosecutor Wu ○○, requested by the Taiwan Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office (Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 66 of 2024), and the Wu Nai-ren lobbying case, requested by the Taiwan Taipei District Prosecutors Office (Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 25 of 2025).

In other words, five years after the amendments took effect, the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee still had a score of zero when it came to evaluation requests filed by individual members of the public that were ultimately upheld under the amended Judges Act.

Recent Case: "#MeToo Supporters Countersued and Called 'Keyboard Warriors' by a Prosecutor" (Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 50 of 2025)

During Taiwan's #MeToo movement in June 2023, Lee Tzu-tung, Yan Yisheng, and several friends who had also posted about the matter online sought to draw attention to the experiences of victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment. Lee and Yan, who later attended a press conference on March 10, 2025, stated on Facebook that they had personally witnessed or learned of writer Walis Nokan (Chinese name: Wu Junjie; hereinafter "Wu Junjie") sexually harassing a young woman at an event in November 2021. Wu subsequently filed complaints against them.

The case was initially handled by a prosecutor surnamed Chen at the Taiwan Taichung District Prosecutors Office—the prosecutor later subject to the evaluation request. The publicly released evaluation request redacted the prosecutor's identifying information. The parties ultimately received final non-prosecution dispositions.

Although the two parties were relieved that other prosecutors ultimately disposed of the case through non-prosecution after jurisdiction was transferred, they told the JRF that, during investigative hearings on November 27 and December 21, 2023, the prosecutor who questioned them frequently adopted an aggressive and impatient manner, spoke harshly, repeatedly interrupted their statements, and made remarks that they considered biased and rooted in gender stereotypes.

Examples included: "I have no interest in hearing about the background to all of this!", "Answer the question I asked," "That is irrelevant. I am not asking about that. I am not interested. Just answer whether you can be certain that what was said was true," and "The other person is a well-known figure in the literary world. Is it appropriate for you to do this?"

The prosecutor also repeatedly asked one of the parties whether the person was a woman.

The party not only found it difficult to understand what their gender had to do with the elements of the offense of defamation, but also perceived the questioning as suggesting that only people of a particular gender, such as women, could feel uncomfortable about sexual harassment and therefore regarded it as gender-discriminatory language. (Summary based on the evaluation request.)

This was particularly significant because the case was not simply an ordinary defamation case. It arose after citizens spoke in support of victims who had difficulty speaking out within patriarchal power structures during the #MeToo movement and were subsequently subjected to criminal complaints filed by a socially influential individual.

Although the parties ultimately received non-prosecution dispositions, justice for members of the public cannot be reduced to "everything is fine as long as the final result turns out all right." Their experience of what they regarded as a lack of gender sensitivity and an inappropriate attitude on the part of judicial personnel during the investigation left them concerned that similar approaches in other defamation cases arising from #MeToo allegations could cause secondary harm to victims.

Accordingly, in 2025, the JRF held a press conference together with the parties and formally filed an evaluation request with the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee, which, more than four years after the amended Judges Act took effect, had yet to uphold a single evaluation request filed by an individual member of the public.

How Did the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee Decide Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 50 of 2025?

In early January 2026, the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee issued its decision (please refer to the decision):

Issue / Summary of Questioning	Prosecutor Evaluation Committee's Finding
Whether the prosecutor's attitude was inappropriate	During the November 27, 2023 investigative hearing, the prosecutor made statements including: "So all of you just irresponsibly repeat hearsay back and forth and think that's fine, right?" (15:42:11); "Did you experience it yourself? Answer the prosecutor's question"; "You repeated somebody else's experience. Did you verify it yourself?" (15:42:19); and "Answer the prosecutor's question. Don't drag other matters into this." The prosecutor further asked whether the statements attributed to Lee ○○ were true or false, where the testimony came from, whether it was invented, whether the witnesses actually existed, and whether every person whose statement was relied upon had been personally seen. Later, when Lu ○○ sought to further explain their relationship with Walis ○○, the prosecutor replied: "No need. That isn't what I care about." (15:50:55). The Committee concluded, after reviewing the audiovisual recordings, that the prosecutor's tone "was admittedly not particularly gentle," but that the prosecutor had not used violence or coercion, much less inducement, deception, prolonged questioning designed to cause fatigue, or other improper questioning methods, and therefore had not violated prosecutorial ethics. As to the allegations of "an inappropriate questioning attitude, repeatedly interrupting the parties, and aggressively challenging portions of their statements as untruthful," the Committee likewise found that the conduct "could hardly be said to have risen to the level of ridicule or verbal abuse."
Further questioning during the same hearing	When the prosecutor asked whether the people whose accounts defendant Zeng ○○ had verified had personally experienced the alleged incidents, Zeng attempted to explain that he had verified the information with the victim, although the victim had responded indirectly. The prosecutor then said in an elevated tone: "Don't drag this any further off topic! Do what the prosecutor tells you to do!" (15:57:00).
December 21, 2023 hearing	At the end of the hearing, the prosecutor told the defendants and witnesses: "You should all seriously reflect on yourselves. If you had been more careful about what came out of your mouths, you wouldn't have brought these things upon yourselves." (15:30:20). During the same hearing, Lee Tzu-tung, the requester in the evaluation proceeding, stated that she had personally seen the complainant "putting his hands all over" the female victim. The prosecutor loudly asked what "putting his hands all over" meant. Lee replied that she had seen him touch the woman's chest. The prosecutor then challenged the wording of her account and interrupted before she finished responding, stating: "Listen carefully to what I'm saying! Don't talk over me! Answer when I tell you to answer."
Whether the prosecutor was biased or impartial	The Committee acknowledged that the prosecutor's "questioning attitude was inappropriate," but concluded that, looking at the questioning as a whole, it remained focused on determining whether the defendants had fulfilled their duty to verify the information and therefore was not biased.
Whether the prosecutor improperly questioned gender or engaged in gender discrimination	After reviewing the audiovisual recording, the Committee concluded that the purpose of the prosecutor's questioning was to determine whether Yan Yisheng "was himself the female victim in question."
Whether the defendants were mocked as "keyboard warriors"	Near the end of the December 21, 2023 investigative hearing, the prosecutor said, without identifying a particular person: "Be careful when you're being a keyboard warrior!" The prosecutor also told those present that the Internet could have an enormous effect on people and that they should be careful to ensure that what they posted was true and verified. The Committee concluded that the prosecutor was not reprimanding any particular individual. It further observed that "keyboard warrior" is Internet slang that originally refers to people who act timidly in real life but hide behind the Internet to express self-righteous views. Although the expression is somewhat derogatory and carries a negative connotation of cowardice, the Committee considered that this meaning "was not prominent in the context of this case." It found that the prosecutor had used the expression to remind those present to exercise greater caution when posting online in the name of personal notions of justice, and concluded that the remarks did not amount to bias, discrimination, or improper differential treatment.

One of the greatest obstacles faced by members of the public seeking a prosecutor evaluation is often that they "cannot obtain the audio recording." Where a case results in an indictment, the parties may eventually gain access to the case file. In cases ending in non-prosecution, however, a person seeking an evaluation often has little choice but to submit a signed written report describing what occurred. For details, please refer to the JRF's "How Do I Request an Evaluation of a Judge or Prosecutor?".

The evaluation request in this case was initially submitted in precisely this manner. After considerable effort, the unfriendly manner, inappropriate attitude, and derogatory language that the parties said they had experienced during the investigative hearings were ultimately confirmed as factual. Yet under the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee's standards, those facts were not considered sufficiently serious to warrant further action—not even a request that the authority responsible for administrative supervision remind or warn the prosecutor.

How wide is the gap between conduct described as "not particularly gentle" and an "inappropriate attitude," on the one hand, and the kind of justice members of the public expect, on the other?

As a civil society organization, once the JRF received the Committee's decision, the most it could do was consider sending an official letter to the Taiwan Taichung District Prosecutors Office based on the contents of the evaluation decision, urging the office to properly exercise its supervisory responsibilities so that parties in future cases would not again have to experience questioning characterized as "not particularly gentle" or involving language that was "somewhat derogatory."

How Can the Evaluation System Avoid Decline?

Since the 2020 amendments to the Judges Act, the law has required the Evaluation Committees to employ dedicated personnel to assist with reviewing evaluation requests and investigating evaluation matters.

Under the organizational rules governing the Judge Evaluation Committee and the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee, the committees are staffed by one executive secretary and one section chief, as well as one to three section officers responsible for administrative matters such as documentation, general affairs, and records management; one to two Grade-2 clerks; and three to five Grade-3 clerks.

By comparison, under the previous version of the Judges Act, the JRF relied on only two or three staff members and volunteers, supported by privately raised funds, to receive a substantial volume of complaints from the public. Specific statistics and cases are available on the relevant JRF webpage.

Under the previous system, the JRF's Complaint Center also directly assisted members of the public in filing individual evaluation requests. It received a total of 1,527 public complaints and, after review, filed 46 individual evaluation requests with the Judge Evaluation Committee. Of the 28 evaluation requests that were ultimately upheld, 14—exactly 50 percent—had been filed by the JRF.

The current Evaluation Committees therefore cannot be described as seriously understaffed.

With these resources, their full-time staff should be able to provide more substantial assistance to the part-time committee members in conducting proactive investigations. At the same time, the committee members themselves, as the principal decision-makers, should actively guide the direction of investigations and fully exercise the investigatory functions entrusted to the Evaluation Committees.

What does being proactive mean?

During the first year after the amendments, the JRF repeatedly urged the Evaluation Committees to proactively obtain audio recordings, and substantial progress has since been made in this regard. In other respects, however, the JRF is particularly concerned with the need for proactive "behavior-pattern investigations."

Prosecutor Evaluation Case No. 50 of 2025 demonstrates the problem. The Prosecutor Evaluation Committee did obtain and review the audiovisual recordings. Yet one of the matters the requester specifically asked it to investigate was whether it could "conduct spot checks of Prosecutor Chen's questioning practices in other cases." There is no indication that the Committee did so.

As a result, the decision gives little insight into whether Prosecutor Chen questioned the parties in this manner specifically because of a negative attitude toward #MeToo-related advocacy, or whether this was simply the prosecutor's ordinary questioning style.

Another example concerns Judge Lee Chao-jung. In September 2023, the Judge Evaluation Committee finally issued its first decision upholding an evaluation request filed by an individual member of the public, in Judge Evaluation Case No. 3 of 2023. The evaluated judge had sought to avoid internal case-management time limits, which ultimately resulted in the party's case being treated as withdrawn and infringed upon the party's right of access to the courts.

Regrettably, although the Judge Evaluation Committee obtained and reviewed the relevant audio recordings and thereby vindicated the party's account of what had occurred, it nevertheless concluded that the misconduct had not reached the level requiring referral for disciplinary action.

Near the end of its evaluation decision, the Committee stated: "The requester did not submit other specific relevant evidence, and this Committee therefore has no basis on which to determine that the evaluated judge committed other misconduct."

This illustrates the Evaluation Committee's longstanding passive, complaint-driven approach and its lack of initiative.

Civil society organizations and individual requesters, before filing an evaluation request, invariably make inquiries from multiple sources about the prosecutor's ordinary conduct. They do not casually submit evaluation requests based on extremely isolated incidents.

Accordingly, although the principle of non-disclosure of investigations means that requesters often possess only limited information, the Evaluation Committee should recognize that requesters are among the people most genuinely motivated—and often best positioned—to help identify information relevant to the person being supervised.

If an Evaluation Committee is willing to proactively investigate behavioral patterns pursuant to Article 35, Paragraph 6 of the Judges Act, which provides that, where necessary to determine a pattern of conduct, the Judge Evaluation Committee may concurrently investigate and deliberate on misconduct that was not included in the original request, it will be better able to determine whether improper conduct by a judge or prosecutor was merely an isolated incident or has developed into a problematic pattern of case handling.

Understanding the evaluated judge's or prosecutor's management of proceedings, interpersonal interactions, case-handling practices, and other aspects of professional conduct, and thereby developing a fuller picture of the person's overall pattern of behavior, is important in determining whether disciplinary action is necessary and what further action an evaluation should entail.

Otherwise, if the Evaluation Committees remain weak, members of the public who encounter problematic judges or prosecutors will simply abandon the evaluation mechanism and petition the Control Yuan directly.

The evaluation mechanism will then gradually become an institution that exists in name but lacks meaningful supervisory capacity or influence.

Judicial Reform Emergency Room: Continuing to Monitor Unfit Judges and Prosecutors

The JRF continues to receive complaints from members of the public every month in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung.

In particular, "Category III: Cases Involving Unfit Judges and Prosecutors" was developed in response to the amended Judges Act, which took effect on July 17, 2020 and allows members of the public to directly request an evaluation without going through the JRF.

For information on how to request an evaluation and sample filings, please refer to the JRF's "Judge/Prosecutor Evaluation" page.

However, if you have already filed a request with the Judge Evaluation Committee or Prosecutor Evaluation Committee and encounter procedural obstacles, or if you believe that the Committee's determination is problematic, you are welcome to file a complaint with the JRF.

In recent years, we have been particularly concerned about the following types of cases:

1. Judges displaying an inappropriate attitude during court proceedings. Information may be gathered through court observation or verified by applying for court audio recordings.
   
2. Prosecutors displaying an inappropriate attitude during investigative proceedings. Because investigations are non-public, it is generally not possible to verify such conduct through audio recordings at the time. Once an investigation has concluded, applications may instead be made to an entity authorized to obtain the recordings, such as the Prosecutor Evaluation Committee.
   
3. Judges or prosecutors demonstrating inadequate gender awareness during investigations or trials, or in the reasoning underlying their decisions.
   
4. Human rights violations involving international human rights conventions, including discrimination based on disability or ethnicity.
   

If you have questions concerning appointments, please contact the JRF Complaint Center through LINE (ID: @jrftw). For further information, please also refer to the "Judicial Reform Emergency Room" page on the JRF's official website.