Why has Taiwan not made fuller use of citizen judges since introducing the system? TaiwanPlus speaks to Chin Mong-hwa, a law professor at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.
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00:00Originally, Taiwan set budgets for 305 cases, but so far only 108 cases were filed,
00:07and 16 judges, 13 concluded. Why Taiwan's citizen-judge implementation rate so low?
00:13Because our system is a mandatory system. I mean, if the case criteria is met,
00:21the case has to go to citizen-judge trials. So it's not up to the prosecutor or the defendant
00:29or the judge to decide whether a case actually goes to trial. And since it's mandatory,
00:36I think right now we only see 108 cases. I think that reflects the reality. In the real world,
00:48so far we only have 108 cases. So that's why I don't think the number is lower than expected
00:57is a problem, because that reflects the reality. In nearly 25% of cases, defendants and prosecutors
01:05have requested to exclude citizen-judges from the trial process. Why do they seem unwilling
01:11to involve the citizen-judges? Right now, a lot of reasons provided by the defendant or the
01:17prosecutor is that the case is too complicated for citizen-judge to understand. But from the
01:24court's perspective, the court wants as many cases as possible. The court does not like this
01:32phenomenon, because in the future, when we expand to other kinds of cases, to cases with the
01:40lowest sentence of 10 years or more, then it will include a lot of non-violent cases, a lot of
01:49white-collar crimes. These cases are usually more complicated than violent cases. If the court
01:56allows all requests to not to go to citizen-judge trial, then we will have fewer and fewer cases
02:03every year, and the system don't have the chance to be tested. Starting in 2026, more cases will
02:13be eligible for citizen-judge, with expected rise in case law and current implementation situation.
02:20What measures can be taken to ensure the system can handle this future increase? So I think we
02:27should objectively assess the possibility of implementing a plea bargain system in Taiwan.
02:34So basically, plea bargain system allows the defendant to bargain with the prosecutor. This
02:41bargaining process takes into consideration of the resources of the prosecution's office.
02:52It also provides motive for the defendant to reach a deal with the prosecutor and not go to trial.
02:59So it's a win-win situation. And for the court, it's a win too, because the court does not have to
03:06impanel a jury to resolve the case, and will save a lot of time and resources.