JRF Emergency Room

In the post-pandemic era, the JRF Advocacy Center hopes to step out of the office, cross telephone lines, and meet face-to-face with the public across northern, central, and southern Taiwan to better understand the problems everyone encounters and thereby find key leverage points for judicial system reform.

If you believe your case can provide momentum for judicial reform, please click the reservation link below directly to schedule an in-person consultation.

Types of Cases Accepted by the JRF Emergency Room

We are not a general legal consultation unit and do not accept general legal consultations for ongoing cases. Cases accepted by the JRF Emergency Room are limited to the following five categories:

Category 1: Criminal Miscarriages of Justice

If you are a "defendant" in a "criminal" case who has been "convicted with finality" (meaning no further appeal is possible) for something you "did not do," please submit a grievance to us.

Category 2: Improper Law Enforcement by Police, and Violations of the Principle of Non-Disclosure of Investigation by Prosecutors, Police, and Investigation Bureaus

If you have personally experienced improper law enforcement by police, particularly involving police racial discrimination, improper coercive measures, excessive use of force, improper investigation, or illegal stop-and-frisk.

If your own case has been subjected to public disclosure of the investigation or if you discover that prosecutors, police, or investigation personnel have violated the principle of non-disclosure of investigation, please submit a grievance to us. (You are welcome to refer to the relevant explanations under "Realization of Non-Disclosure of Investigation." In recent years, the JRF has also paid special attention to "improper media exposure in cases involving the Citizen Judges Act." If your case fits this description, please be sure to submit a grievance to us.)

Category 3: Unfit Judges and Prosecutors

On July 17, 2020, the new Judges Act came into force, allowing citizens to directly initiate evaluations without going through the JRF. For methods of initiating evaluations and sample forms, please refer to the explanation under our "Judge/Prosecutor Evaluation" section. However, if you have already submitted a grievance to the Judges or Prosecutors Evaluation Commission but encountered procedural barriers, or if you believe the Evaluation Commission's determination is problematic, you are welcome to submit a grievance to us.

In recent years, we have been particularly concerned with:

• Poor courtroom demeanor of judges (information can be gathered through courtroom observation or verified by applying for court recording audio discs).
• Poor courtroom demeanor of prosecutors (due to non-disclosure of investigation, audio discs cannot be verified in most cases; applications can only be made after the conclusion of the investigation to units authorized to retrieve audio, such as the Prosecutors Evaluation Commission).
• Lack of gender awareness by judges and prosecutors during investigation and trial processes or in their grounds for decisions.
• Human rights violations involving international conventions, such as those involving discrimination against persons with disabilities or ethnic groups.

Category 4: Correctional Institution Medical Rights Grievance Project

The Control Yuan issued an investigation report (101 Judicial Investigation 0046) in 2012 investigating "medical deficiencies in prisons and detention centers, which seriously affect the right to life of inmates," but 13 years have passed and the problems have clearly not substantially improved. If your relatives or friends are detained in prison and have encountered delayed medical treatment or other situations meeting the following criteria, you are welcome to submit a grievance to us:

The Foundation will provide assistance to the best of its ability based on individual case circumstances, hoping to jointly promote institutional reform advocacy and realize medical human rights in correctional institutions. For detailed explanations, please refer to the Foundation's "Correctional Institution Medical Rights Grievance Project."

Category 5: Wandering Trials Project

In the past, the JRF assisted Mr. Chang Kuo-lung (張國隆) and Mr. Ko Fang-tse (柯芳澤) in Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 725 cases, which were finally acquitted in criminal proceedings after thirty years. Recently, we once again received a grievance from a party whose criminal case has been prosecuted for 20 years yet the proceedings have still not concluded; the mastermind behind all of this is precisely the institutional problems lurking behind the scenes.

To deeply investigate the causes of the predicament of wandering trials and further commit to strategies for ending the predicament of unresolved cases, starting today we are officially issuing a public call for cases to the Taiwan Bar Association, local bar associations, and the general public:

＊The Foundation will strictly uphold the obligation of confidentiality regarding the information provided. Without the consent of the providing attorney or the party to the case, it will never be disclosed in any manner or made known to others. For detailed explanations, please refer to the Foundation's "Ending Wandering Trials, JRF Issues Public Call for Cases."

＊Assistance for individual cases will be provided depending on the circumstances.

※ For urgent situations, please make an appointment and call during working hours for confirmation.

Time Slots

14:00-18:00, with 7 time slots open for reservation. Each time slot is 30 minutes.

Make a Reservation

JRF Emergency Room Reservation Links:

• Taipei Session: JRF Taipei Office, Open Reservation Dates: 11月6日 
• Taichung Session: JRF Taichung Office, Open Reservation Dates:  11月20日 
• Kaohsiung Session: Taiwan Association for Human Rights Southern Office, Open Reservation Dates:  10月23日11月26日

1. Please select the date and location when you are available for an in-person consultation, click the link above to enter the reservation page, and fill in your basic information to make a reservation.
2. Before making a reservation, please be sure to confirm that you are free the entire afternoon on that day. Please join the JRF Advocacy Center LINE.
3. If your reservation is successful, a legal specialist from the Advocacy Center will contact you via LINE to confirm the specific interview time on your reserved date.
4. On the day of the consultation, an in-person interview will be conducted by an Advocacy Center legal specialist, with each slot lasting 30 minutes. Please arrive ten minutes early to wait at the venue.
5. To ensure the rights of other applicants who have made reservations, your consultation with the Advocacy Center legal specialist can only last until the end of your assigned time slot. The same applies if you are late.
6. If the Advocacy Center legal specialist, after conducting the interview, believes there is a direction for further assistance regarding your grievance or appeal, they will contact you further.

Remarks

• Correctional Institution Grievances: If your relative or friend is an inmate in a correctional institution and wishes to submit a grievance regarding legal consultations for grievances under the Enforcement Act of the Prison Act and the Detention Act, considering that communication from within prison is not easy, we still open up inmates to submit various grievances via correspondence. Please refer to "Correctional Institution Grievances."
• Constitutional Litigation: If your individual case involves legal issues of significant public interest and you have exhausted all avenues of litigation relief yet still lost, you may request the JRF's Constitutional Litigation Special Division in writing (on-site grievances are not accepted) to evaluate whether the relevant legal norms or rulings raise constitutional doubts. For details, please refer to the "Constitutional Litigation / Constitutional Interpretation" page.
• If you have any questions regarding reservations, please contact the JRF Advocacy Center LINE ID: @jrftw. Starting today, the JRF Advocacy Center LINE will no longer reply to questions other than those concerning reservations.