▍Ceremony of Transition for the Outgoing and New President of the Judicial
  Yuan

(Press Release)

Vice President, President Lai, Minister Chiu, and esteemed guests:

I want to thank everyone that took time out of their busy schedule to attend this ceremony. 

This is my second time serving at the Judicial Yuan. Thirteen years ago, I was a public law scholar when I first joined the judiciary to become a Justice of the Constitutional Court, and I was able to quickly adapt to my role because the task of constitutional interpretation had strong academic characteristics. As I once again join the ranks of the judiciary, besides the task of constitutional interpretation, I will also be in charge with the administrative aspects of the judiciary, and this has increased the burden placed on my shoulders, especially since the citizens have been eagerly waiting for the judicial reform. I had already been given an opportunity to be the leader of an organization before, but that leadership role was different than the current Presidential leadership role before me. I was the Dean for the College of Law at National Taiwan University, and during my tenure as Dean, I had always viewed the most important function of the Dean as one that supported and assisted the faculty in their teaching and research in order to maximize their ability to teach and do research. Because teachers are the ones that provide core functions to schools, when teachers are able to reach their full potential, students become the true beneficiaries. Today as I undertake the important duty of the President of the Judicial Yuan, I also view my role as one that would support and assist the judges in their trials. Because judges are the ones that provide core functions to the whole judicial system, when judges are able to reach their full potential, citizens become the true beneficiaries. This is my most fundamental belief as I take on the role of the President of the Judicial Yuan.        

We all know that discerning right from wrong, making judgements between good and bad, resolving argument and conflicts, protecting human rights, fulfilling the ideology of justice in our society are all important and fundamental mandates that our citizens require of the judiciary. All judicial reform must be focused thorough these core ideologies before they would be advanced. In order to fulfill these mandates, we need to have sufficient numbers of judges with excellent credentials as well as a complete legal system with administrative departments that work tirelessly together. I also understand that after many years of hard work, we have numerous outstanding and diligent judges, and we have also established important systems that are meant to become the foundation for a country based on the rule of law. In recent years, under President Lai's leadership and with the support from his team, he pushed forward several important policies, for example the Judicial Electronic System, internationalization, and the moot courts, etc. all of which are helpful to our judicial system in its international integration. In the process of advancing our judicial reform, I am fortunate enough to be standing on the shoulders of the giants and have learn from the experiences and outcomes from those that have gone before me as a way to examine our current circumstances in planning for the future. At this point, I want to especially thank President Lai and the team that he has led, as well as the judicial veterans that have worked hard and made sacrifices for the judiciary, to you I extend my sincerest respect.

However, with the rapid change in our society and surrounding circumstances, we see a surge of new and traditional types of cases flooding into our judicial system that is creating an overload to our judiciary and its capabilities, causing our judges to become overworked while not be able to effectively resolve the complaints from the parties or address the comments and criticism given by the public. Therefore, using our ideology as a guidance, advancing a practical and effective judicial reform is imperative and should be done immediately. In regards to what the Judicial Yuan plans to advance in the judicial reform from hereon, the important reform categories, methodology, and perspective have all been announced through an outline included in the press release that was issued after I’ve been confirmed by the Legislative Yuan. Today, I want to use this opportunity to discuss the important contents of the six issues that should be advocated and implemented at their earliest possible time.

First, maintain core judicial values: Adjudication should be based on legitimate foundations such as judicial independence, protection of human rights, and the due process of law. Not only should we persevere and stand firm in these values, we want these values to be engrained into each case and become internalized by each individual judge and all of the hearts of the personnel in the judiciary, with the specific hope that each judge, no matter the system or the level of court that they are in, will maintain the spirit of protecting human rights through upholding our Constitution by applying and interpreting the law in accordance with the Constitutional intent. 

Second, within reasonable means, decrease the workload of judges: This is a prerequisite to all the success of the judicial reform, because to expect that judges with unreasonable workload be able to execute to perfection all of the duties related to each trial is an impossible feat. Therefore, how to gradually push forward and implement a pyramid structure in our litigation procedure and court organization by decreasing the intake of cases, simplifying the litigation procedures, strengthening individual parties obligations in litigation, preventing repetitive lawsuits, and putting assisting personnel, equipment, and other resources to good use in order to decrease the workload on judges so that judges can focus their attention on deciding the legal issues in their cases are all important tasks to be done in the future.

Third, moving towards a more professional decision-making process: In response to the diverse, complicated, and expertise-driven social activities that have create disputes in fields such as the medicine, architecture, labor, food safety, finances, corporate governance, electronic information, and environmental protection, there is a need for professional knowledge and experience so that the litigation process can be correct, expedient, and appropriate. Therefore, besides improving on the applications of the current system such as appraiser and expert participation, implementing specialized courts, and improve the expertise and knowledge of judges through advanced studies, how to design a special dispute resolution process for these conflicts either by creating a specialized court or perhaps choose experts and scholars besides the judges to join in the judicial process would be something we would aggressively plan and advance.

Fourth, enhance the oral argument process: Oral arguments are central to trials and are the fundamental litigation principle for the rule of law in developed countries. In demanding for a diverse, transparent, communicative, and detailed judgements befitting the modern judiciary, the oral argument plays an important role. Therefore, besides the current laws that expressly requires oral arguments in cases, we will use judicial work training opportunities to strengthen judges in their organization of legal issues, command of the litigation process, and clarification abilities while reviewing the oral argument requirements in the current laws, so that the capability to having oral arguments will be present throughout the litigation process and in the Constitutional Court procedures.

Fifth, decrease the differences and conflicts between the judgments: Law is the rule that people who join in social activities commonly abide by. The judgments made by the judges are the “laws” declared in the individual cases. A difference in judgments is an important factor of why people do not trust the judiciary. Therefore, in not interfering with the principle of judicial independence, how to seek unity in legal decisions is an important issue for the judicial reform. Because of this reason, besides gradually advancing and implementing the pyramid structure in our litigation structure and court organization, during this transition period, we should be aggressively pursuing to establish courts of last resort by creating Grand Court Room or joint Grand Court Room (cross systems) in order to unify the decisions made in the courts of final resort. In lower courts, through specific processes, a review could be conducted at any time to see whether or not there is a difference in judicial judgements and within the legal framework, seek to create unity in the court decisions.

Sixth, establish the appeal process for Constitution decisions: Constitution is the fundamental law of a country that serves as a warrantee for the protection of human rights, and therefore judicial judgments with the core value of protecting human rights should be actualized in every case because that is the Constitutional intent. When it has been confirmed that the law applied in a case is in fact unconstitutional, it is with due course that the parties should be allowed to file a petition for constitutional interpretation, but even if the law applied in a case is not unconstitutional, if the legal interpretation made within the judgment is in violation of the Constitutional intent, a petition should be allowed to be filed in order to fulfill and realize the Constitutional intent of protecting human rights.

Besides the aforementioned issues, the Judicial Yuan has other important policy items that it will seek to carry out, for example increase the diversity of methods for joining the judiciary, enforce information transparency (e.g. enhance each court’s websites, publish judges’ information in moderation, and publish rules for administrative distribution, etc.), review regulations regarding case management, allow criminal victims to participate in litigation, establish mechanisms that would prevent criminal defendants under investigation from escaping, strictly evaluate the final court decisions on death penalty cases, and enhance the communication between each courts systems with external entities.

In order to push forward with the judicial reform that I have just mentioned, I plan to establish a Judicial Reform Development Team inside of the Judicial Yuan as soon as possible that will have the Secretary-General acting as the chairperson to research, develop and implement these plans quickly.

In conclusion, the judicial reform in its most simplistic form should solely start from the perspective of the people and seek to protect human rights as its ideology by researching practical plans that could be thoroughly carried out. Last of all, I want to reiterate a perspective that I mentioned in an earlier press release: The basic attitude of the Judicial Yuan moving forward will be to actively promote opportunities that will give the people to an opportunity to speak, and I will humbly listen to everyone's opinion in order to formulate a best resolution that fits with our nation’s current circumstances. The expectation is that our judiciary will turn a brand-new page so all people will benefit from the judicial reform, and all of our social activities will run with stability and be developed under the rule of law so that all of the judges and judicial staff will get the honor that they deserve.

• Release Date : 2019-11-01
• Update : 2019-11-01