Judicial Budget

The 1998 "Judicial Budget Briefing Paper"

On November 20, 1996, the Judicial Reform Foundation (JRF) accepted an invitation to a banquet hosted by President Shih Chi-yang, during which it put forward five reform demands (Judicial Reform Magazine, No. 6, p. 35). Following the Lunar New Year, the JRF kept up the momentum and formally presented the five reform demands on January 20, 1996 (ROC calendar), through a "Judicial Reform Symposium (Seminar)" jointly participated in by the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice. These five demands could all be promoted without amending laws. However, although the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice were headed by President Shih and Minister Liao Cheng-hao respectively to show their importance, their responses to the JRF's suggestions were always "to be reassessed" or "to be further studied."

Consequently, after the meeting, the JRF issued a statement: "If there is no concrete response after one month, we will join forces with legislators to demand incidental resolutions during the review of the judicial budget" (Judicial Reform Magazine, No. 7, p. 32). The five demands put forward by the JRF at the time were:

1. Discuss and study the placement of judges' nameplates on the judges' bench during court sessions in all courts nationwide.
   
2. Discuss and study measures to periodically publish a list of individuals who lobby judicial cases during the investigation stage.
   
3. Establish a computerized retrieval system for judgments of courts at all levels and documents of prosecutors' offices nationwide, and discuss and study measures for open access.
   
4. Discuss and study concrete measures on how to progressively ensure that prosecutors are present at trials from beginning to end and earnestly and thoroughly execute public prosecution.
   
5. Formulate measures for the centralized trial of judges.
   

Among the JRF's five demands, the first was a demand for judicial self-respect and mutual respect. Just imagine, even bus drivers display their names; why would judges not dare to show their names to the public? The second demand was an important strategy to combat interference. The third, like the first, made oversight possible only through sunshine and was also conducive to elevating the standards of legal science. As for the fourth and fifth demands, they were the JRF's signature appeals. These five were chosen because they could proceed without amending the laws. Unfortunately, the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice showed extreme insincerity and repeatedly procrastinated. Although the Judicial Yuan once again invited the JRF on February 20 to discuss the various propositions, it made only slight progress regarding the "publication of lobbying." Although the Judicial Yuan promulgated the Implementation Guidelines for Periodically Publishing Lists of Individuals Requesting Intervention or Lobbying in Judicial Cases by the Judicial Yuan and Its Subordinate Agencies on April 9, 1997, it narrowed the definition of "lobbying" and required procedural approvals layer by layer, making it almost certain to be ineffective (Judicial Reform Magazine, No. 9, p. 28). In fact, to this day, no effects have ever been heard of.

As for the other four propositions, having waited in vain for goodwill responses from the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice, the JRF then—during the Legislative Yuan's budget review that year (the budget year at the time ran from July 1, 1986 [ROC calendar] to June 30 of the following year)—proposed the "Judicial Budget Briefing Paper" for the first time, including the remaining four propositions within it (Judicial Reform Magazine, No. 7, p. 27 et seq.), extending the JRF's battle front into the Legislative Yuan.

Comprehensive Inspection of the FY 1999 Judicial Budget

In the spring of 1998, aside from legislative and amendment efforts regarding the Judges Act and administrative-remedy legislation, another effort worth introducing was the "Comprehensive Inspection of the FY 88 [1999] Judicial Budget."

Originally, in 1998 (ROC year 87), the JRF had promoted the "constitutionalization of judicial budget independence" (see Judicial Reform Magazine, Nos. 28 and 29), which was successfully agreed upon and incorporated into the Constitution of the Republic of China by all three major parties in July of that year. The question was: once the Executive Yuan's constraints were removed, how would the Judicial Yuan fare when compiling its new, independently drafted budget for the first time? This was definitely worth examining. Therefore, following the previous year's (1997) modest attempt to propose requirements for incidental resolutions on the judicial budget (Judicial Reform Magazine, No. 31), the JRF formally conducted a comprehensive inspection of the Central Government's judicial budget for FY 1999 (July 1, 1998 to June 30, 1999) in the first half of 1998.

First, Attorney Kao Jui-cheng earnestly pointed out that "the judicial budget should be compiled and the Judges Act enacted starting from the perspective of judicial reform" (Judicial Reform Magazine, No. 14, p. 3), explicitly pointing out four major deficiencies in the FY 1999 judicial budget: insufficient pioneering nature, insufficient cost-effectiveness, insufficient balance, and insufficient legality. Next, the JRF's "Judicial Budget Group" presented the "Comprehensive Inspection of the Judicial Yuan's Outlays Budget in the Central Government General Budget for FY 1997 [ROC 86]" on March 24 under the title "Budget is Top-Heavy and Ignores Judicial Reform Engineering" (ibid., p. 6), clearly pointing out four major defects: a top-heavy budget compilation, improper staffing arrangements, rampant emerging engineering projects, and failure to implement judicial reform engineering. Following that, through the "General Review of the Judicial Yuan's Various Administrative Plans and Performance Evaluations for FY 1999" (ibid., p. 8), it raised more than ten criticisms targeting four areas respectively: "FY 1997 Work Performance," "FY 1999 Administrative Plan," "Formulation of the FY 1999 Budget in Alignment with Major Judicial Administrative Plans," and "FY 1999 Expected Administrative Continuation." It then conducted an "Inspection on the Implementation Status of Incidental Resolutions for the FY 1998 Judicial Budget" (ibid., p. 11), finding that two items—"live electronic media broadcasting of the Constitutional Court" and "placing judges' nameplates in the courtroom"—were completely unfulfilled, and many other items also failed to be implemented in accordance with the resolutions.

The final centerpiece was the "Opinions on the FY 1999 Judicial Budget" (ibid., p. 12). Concrete opinions included:

Under the objective of "alleviating judges' work burdens and elevating the quality of adjudications," attention should be paid to the following:

1. Personnel structures should be adjusted rather than compiling budgets for judge trainees and legal officers before the legal amendments are passed (it is suggested that this part of the budget be frozen); furthermore, it is also improper that district courts are not allocated judicial assistants.
   
2. Hardware equipment should emphasize investment rationality: for example, summary courts have shown poor results and official dormitories have a high idle rate; such budgets should be deleted.
   
3. Official vehicles should be preferentially allocated as "district court verification vehicles" rather than official sedans. In addition, many other recommendations were put forward.
   

Because the JRF's suggestions resonated powerfully and were continuously used by legislators to interpellate the Judicial Yuan, it was said that the Judicial Yuan was "caught off guard," a rare occurrence in the history of judicial budget reviews. Because of the JRF's efforts, myself (the convener of the budget group) and several other lawyers were even hired by the then-DPP caucus as "Budget Review Consultants for the Legislative Yuan Caucus for FY 1999." Later, when the JRF visited Chang Wan-chuan, Deputy Director of the Legislative Yuan's Budget Center (now the Director), he also praised the JRF for conducting budget review opinions as "laymen," achieving such results which was quite remarkable.

Because my own "arithmetic" is pretty good, even though I had never taken an accounting class, I later boldly took on the job of Accounting Director of the Taipei Bar Association. Learning on the job and relying on my limited knowledge, I unexpectedly "rode a big horse as a child" and "leapfrogged" to review the judicial budget. I could not help feeling somewhat diffident, but the results seemed pretty good after all. Therefore, what I want to say is: the authorities are not as strong as we think, and we are not as weak as we think. The Judicial Budget Group has been "out of business" for several years; I wonder if there are any kindred spirits who would like to give it another try?