Lady Justice is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. But she is often depicted wearing a blindfold. Why should she be blindfolded? Well, it is done in order to indicate that justice should be meted out objectively, without fear or favor, regardless of identity, money, power, or weakness. That is easier said than done, of course.
Now take a look at what has transpired in our judiciary over the past week. Three judges and a prosecutor were arrested on corruption charges and held incommunicado for further questioning in connection with acquitting at the second trial Ho Chih-hui, former magistrate of Miaoli who had been sentenced by a district court to 19 years in prison for graft. Ho has gone into hiding, perhaps tipped off by an insider who knew he would be rounded up together with the judges.
That is actually a tip of the iceberg that reveals, or rather, confirms, Lady Justice in Taiwan isn't blindfolded but may be really and truly blind. Under fire, Lai Ing-jaw tendered his resignation as president of the Judicial Yuan and chairman of the Council of Grand Justices to take responsibility. President Ma Ying-jeou has accepted Lai's resignation and is now looking for a replacement who will serve only a little more than a year. Unlike the chief justice of the United States, his equivalent in Taiwan has a fixed term, which lasts for four years.
As Lai told a press conference right after he had quitted, most of the more than 1,700 judges in the country over whom his Judicial Yuan has control are upright, hard-working men and women. But the fact is that quite a number of them and many a public prosecutor are corrupt. That's why a popular quip about how justice is done in Taiwan is: “Convicted and given a long sentence at the first trial, with that sentence halved at the second trial, a defendant will be able to enjoy rice noodles served with roasted pig's feet after the third trial.” Incidentally, our custom requires a defendant absolved to eat the ritual delicacy to remedy or rise above his misfortune. To be sure, that best sums up the fall of the ex-magistrate who also served as a lawmaker and, ironically, a convener of the Legislative Yuan judicial committee.
Ma, who was minister of justice prior to his election as mayor of Taipei, wants a judicial reform. He hopes his nominee for Judicial Yuan president would be able to have the Judges Act adopted so that the judiciary may be culled. Currently, judges and prosecutors are appointed for life, and those with disputable probity can't be forced out unless they are indicted, tried and convicted. But many of those under suspicion would choose to ask for earlier retirement, if they can. So there have been only a very few judges or prosecutors fired for their wrongdoings.
The act, on the other hand, was proposed a very long time ago. It has been stalled at the Legislative Yuan, and nobody knows how long it's going to take for our politicians to pass the act, which, even put into effect, is unlikely to help restore in the foreseeable future public confidence in our Lady Justice, whose counterpart in the Old Bailey courthouse in London, doesn't have a blindfold because her “maidenly form” is supposed to guarantee her impartiality which renders the blindfold redundant.
Lady Justice of Taiwan is considered blind not because we don't have a Judges Act. It's because men and women of questionable integrity have been appointed judges and prosecutors through perfunctory judicial examinations. Our law schools teach students to the test. Those who memorize all our statutes and laws, which they can even recite backward, pass the examinations, which are not designed to question their morality. That is believed to have been taught either at home or in elementary school. The trouble is that neither home nor school has done it. One typical product of the judicial examination scheme is former President Chen Shui-bian, who has his sentence more than halved at the second trial and awaiting an unlikely acquittal at the third and last trial by the Supreme Court for corruption and graft as well as money laundering. He has never been a judge, though he could have been one without any difficulty, for he was always at the top of his class at our most prestigious Taiwan University law school. He passed the bar examination before graduation, and chose to be a defense lawyer. But the ex-president is amoral, doing what he could while in office to rake in money from whoever would bribe him in exchange for his political favors.
Judges are appointed in other democracies not exactly like in Taiwan. In the United States or the United Kingdom, their probity is taken into fuller consideration before they make the bench. Japan selects judges like Taiwan, but Japanese judges are known for their independence and probity. That doesn't mean none of the Japanese judges are corruptible, but the difference is that practically all of a few questionable judges, when suspected, choose to commit suicide out of shame.
Judicial reform won't be successful without a moral rearmament that is long overdue. So long as moral education remains neglected, Taiwan has no chance to have our Lady Justice, without a blindfold, see to it that justice is administered impartially.
〈本文僅供參考，不代表本會立場〉
（本文刊載於99.07.21，The China Post 13版）
周家華
(
2019年1月11日 08:37
)
王順民
(
2024年10月11日 15:05
)
李正修
(
2月27日 13:51
)
