Dear Mr. Kofi A. Annan,
        Mrs. Mary Robinson,

Judges need to be judged. Taiwan needs the judicial reform, because the lower standard of "knowledge and application of law", is confusing Taiwanese people over achieving real democracy. Most of Taiwanese people can't believe the fair-minded lawsuit. Many judicial evaluations are disturbed by political factor, and bribed judgement.

One day in 1997, according to the records of the Judicial Reform Foundation, a young single woman agreed to go on a date with one of the bosses in her company.

He raped her.

Trusting the law, the woman immediately reported it to an all-women police force who collected the evidence and made a report of her injuries. Her lawyer believed the evidence was more than enough and together they field criminal charges against her harasser.

But the victim, not the rapist ended up in custody.

The questioning from the prosecutor went something like this:

"Are you a virgin?"

Before her lawyer had time to object, the woman answered "No."

The prosecutor then said, "Well, seeing that you're not, were you leading him on?"

Her lawyer jumped up and said angrily: "Really prosecutor, we are reporting a violent incident. The evidence is complete."

"Don't interrupt, sit down," the prosecutor said abruptly.

He continued his questioning:

"Were you wearing a short skirt that day?"

The woman replied: "Yes."

"How could you not be leading him on if you were wearing a short skirt?," asked the prosecutor. "Who is the accused?"

"My superior," the woman replied.

"Your superior," the prosecutor replied. "Did you know he had a lot of money? Are you trying to blackmail him?"

Her lawyer lost her temper again and said, "If it was extortion, we would have filed a civil suit. This is a criminal case!"

"Who are you trying to provoke with all your chattering?" the prosecutor said.

"This wasn't extortion," the woman cried. "He looked like a decent prospect. I trusted him too much."

"No," the prosecutor replied, "I think he trusted you too much."

"How could he trust me too much?," the woman asked.

"How else could you have lead him on and let him harm you so you could file this case," he asked.

Her lawyer said, "Right, we're leaving."

As her lawyer ushered her out, the prosecutor said, "Ok, just try to leave, just you try. I'll put her in custody so she has to appear again."

Every time woman appeared for questioning, she was held in court custody. The public nature and position of the accused eventually resulted in the woman losing her job.

Legal reformers and women's rights activists say that a combination of an outdated legal system and ingrained sexist attitudes often protect the rapist, rather than the victim.

"The law playing a key role in this," the report from the Judicial Reform Foundation said.

Legal reformers say that although the Sexual Violence Prevention Act has been passed in the ROC, and there has been progress, at least on paper --- for example, rape and sexual violence is now considered a crime regardless of whether a victim files a complaint --- the act is not being implemented effectively.

According to the regulations specified by the act, the Ministry of Education (MOE) is required to train prosecutors, judges and police officers to handle sexual violence cases, yet reformers complain the MOE is being too lax in this area.

Aside from the act, legal reformers say the police tend to rely on the victim's testimony, rather than collecting evidence at the scene of the crime, forcing the victim to relive the trauma again and again.

They also say that legal authorities are lax about concealing the victim's identity, leaving names and addresses in public files for everyone to find. In one case a group of three brothers who raped seven girls were able to force a reconciliation with the women instead of facing charges because they found the addresses in public files.

"There's no law preventing the release of names," said lawyer Lai Fang-yu, at a public hearing held by New Party legislator Hsieh Chi-ta recently.

Ho Chi-jen, psychiatrist at the Mackay Memorial Hospital who handles rape cases said so far there is no law in the ROC which permits a psychiatric assessment of a rape victim to be considered as evidence.

Psychiatric specialists at the hearing said if a person had all the 'symptoms' of a rape victim, for example recurring nightmares of being chased by the attacker, authorities should consider psychiatric assessments as evidence when material evidence was not enough.

"The victims often say, justice is insufficient because the evidence is insufficient. They feel very bitter and think 'Why doesn't anyone believe me?," Ho said.

Ho said that rape victims should not be questioned in an insensitive manner as is often the case.

"It's OK to have reasonable doubts," Ho said. "But we should keep them inside our heads, not on our faces."

Statistics released by the Mackay Memorial Hospital also revealed that sexist attitudes towards rape victims aren't only confined to the legal system.

A study conducted on 117 rape victims seen in a two year period until August 1998, revealed that 75 percent of victims received the support of their families when filing rape charges if they were virgins. The figure fell to 33.3 percent obtaining their family's support if they were sexually experienced.

73.5 percent of the victims were aged between 11-30 year-old, with 50 percent falling into the 11-20 year-old age group.

One fifth of the victims had experienced rape in their homes from someone they knew well. Most of theses were in their teens.

Victims of multiple rapes were much more likely to be attacked at home by someone known to them, at 66.6 percent. However, obtaining evidence on these kinds of rapes also proved difficult as 70 percent waited at least 6 months before making a complaint. They were also much more likely to back down from filing charges and agree to a reconciliation.

Taipei ---
Interior Minister Huang Chu-wen has ordered last-ditch efforts to defend a Taipei City police officer sentenced to three years in prison for illegally using seized firearms and drugs to buy undercover informants. Huang met with Chen Feng-sheng, a squad leader at Taipei Municipal Security Police Brigade, who once received a national citation for being a model policeman, at his office on Monday and promised to reverse any miscarriage of justice. Chen, who was an undercover policeman and had maintained good relationships with local criminal gangs, said that he would not yield to the high court's verdict because he had been wrongly accused. Chen was handed a prison sentence by the Taiwan High Court last Wednesday after the Taipei District Court acquitted him in the first trial.

Over the past several years, the Taipei Bar Association in cooperation with the Judicial Reform Foundation has been conducting evaluation surveys on local judges. The results of the most recent survey were released last week. The Taipei Bar Association and Judicial Reform Foundation's efforts in conducting these surveys are welcome. It is time for our nation to start judging its judges.

Judicial evaluations are common in other nations. They have been widely used in the United States for about 30 years. They are surveys taken among practicing lawyers. The lawyers rate judges in a number of pre-set categories. Lawyers are surveyed because they have daily exposure to the judges' performance and have the technical knowledge that allows them to make rational appraisals of how the judge is performing. In essence, judicial evaluations are "report cards" for judges.

A well-designed evaluation looks into such factors as the judges' knowledge and application of law; their neutrality, objectivity, fairness and common sense; their diligence and preparedness as well as attentiveness and courtesy to litigants, witnesses and lawyers; their control of the courtroom; administrative and case management abilities; their punctuality and timeliness in rendering rulings and decisions. All these are important factors to consider.

Judicial evaluations serve a number of important purposes; the chief purpose is to serve as a "wake up call" that the judiciary is not functioning well. That would certainly seem to be the case here in Taiwan. On a scale of 0 to 100, with 60 and below being considered a "failing" grade, High Court judges (i.e. the intermediate appellate level) scored an average 69.6. Two High Court judges received less that 60; they "failed." District Court judges (the trial level) did better overall with an average of 74.7. These results clearly show that Taiwan judiciary is in need of improvement.

The reaction to the results on the part of some members of the Taiwanese bench also shows that improvements are needed. Instead of welcoming the input and seriously looking for ways to improve both as individual judges and to improve the judiciary as a whole, several judges have denounced the evaluations, some judges even going as far as filing private criminal lawsuits against the sponsors of the survey.

Such an attitude is unprofessional and contemptible. Judges are not, despite what they might think, above public review, public examination or public censure. Judges are civil servants. The public pays the judges salary. The public has a right to know how they are performing. Judicial evaluations are an effective, impartial and important way to let the public know how the judiciary is working.

The Taipei Bar Association and the Judicial Reform Foundation should keep conducting and publicizing these judicial evaluations. The Judicial Yuan and the individual judges should take the results as a wake-up call to improve the quality of the Taiwanese judiciary.

We want democracy is really practiced in Taiwan, please help Taiwan to learn what is "law" and "human rights".