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Transparency can help prosecutors
By Lin Feng-jeng 林峰正
Friday, Mar 19, 2010, Page 8
A Judicial Yuan annual report found a total of 6,542 confirmed verdicts were
handed down by the Supreme Court in 2008, of which 697 ended in acquittal. In
other words, more than 10 percent of the people had been wrongly accused.
A closer look at the statistics reveals that of the people prosecuted in 250
cases in terms of the Act for the Punishment of Corruption (貪污治罪條例) 118 — almost
half — were eventually found not guilty. Of the 148 prosecuted in terms of the
Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法) 40 percent were found innocent, with 60 cases
ending in acquittal. Another example we could cite is the number of cases
related to interfering with votes, where 112 of 148 cases — more than 75 percent
— were thrown out.
Spare a thought for the people, and their family and friends, falsely accused in
the above cases. The Ministry of Justice maintains that prosecutors in Taiwan
consistently win more than 90 percent of the cases they prosecute, a claim
called into question in light of the statistics in the Judicial Yuan’s annual
report mentioned above. In fact, the ministry’s high prosecution success rate
includes a high proportion of relatively non-contentious public disorder cases
such as drunk driving offenses and violations of the Narcotic Drugs Hazard
Control Act (毒品危害防治條例).
If you do not include these, which actually account for more than half of the
cases that find their way to court, you will see a conspicuous drop in the
prosecution success rate.
If you then look at the figures according to specific categories, you will find
that the acquittal rates are on the high side for offenses such as corruption,
election and recall violations and interfering with voting as mentioned above.
Not only that, these also happen to be precisely the type of cases the ministry
has actively encouraged prosecutors to go for to clean up corruption and
vote-buying. The statistics seem to suggest that the public’s lack of confidence
in prosecutors is warranted.
Of course, this is not the only problem with prosecutions in Taiwan. For
example, there are blatant disclosures of information during ongoing
investigations, with prosecutors using the media for their own ends. Then there
is the abuse of power, exploiting gray areas in the Criminal Procedure Act
(刑事訴訟法) and restricting defendants’ freedom of movement; sloppiness in their
approach to launching appeals, either by indiscriminately making appeals when
they shouldn’t or neglecting out of pure laziness to do so when perhaps they
should. Their attitude in court leaves a lot to be desired as well. The list
goes on and on. With all of this, it is not difficult to see why low confidence
in prosecutors is becoming endemic.
Vice Minister of Justice Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) was recently nominated as the new
state public prosecutor-general. Legislators exercised their right of consent
over the appointee, subjecting Huang to a barrage of questions concerning the
problems mentioned above and what Huang plans to do about it. The
prosecutor-general-to-be also produced a report, promising to clear up the mess,
which is obviously welcome. However, although it’s good to see the will to
improve matters, we might be more convinced that Huang is the man for the job if
he actually came up with some concrete ways to follow through on these promises
and produced verifiable statistics by which improvements could be measured.
For example, Huang promised in the report that if anyone violates the principle
of confidentiality in ongoing investigations, he would immediately look into the
legal implications for their behavior in criminal and administrative law. This
is a step in the right direction, although it might be difficult to put into
practice. However, he will be able to win the public’s approval if he gives
assurances that he will step down of his own accord if there are more
information leaks even after he has had a shot at reprimanding previous
offenders. It should also keep the people working for him in check.
In addition, and this is something that has been almost universally criticized
for quite some time, prosecutors are almost alone among officials in the degree
to which they are untouchable. They are not expected to take the flak for any
mistakes they make.
If Huang could make regular announcements on the performance of each and every
prosecutor, how many cases they took to court ending with a successful
prosecution and how many ended up in an acquittal, and made these statistics
available to the public, we might see some of the transparency and
accountability we need.
If he does this, I suspect we will see prosecutors being more careful in how
they prepare their cases, and we will be able to say goodbye to the ignominious
situation we see reflected in the Judicial Yuan’s statistics, with the large
numbers of cases brought to court that never should have made it that far.
Surely Huang would welcome this public scrutiny: What is there to object to if
it improves efficiency?
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) is aware of the widespread public dissatisfaction with
the situation as it stands and is trying to address this. The prosecutorial
system is part and parcel of civil service, and Huang needs to step up to the
mark and find some way to deal with it.
Otherwise, justice’s good name is going to be dragged through the mud. Then we
would have to ask ourselves, why did we bother replacing former
prosecutor-general Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) in the first place?
Lin Feng-jeng is executive director of the Judicial Reform
Foundation.
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