Over 82 percent of people in Taiwan believe a lay judge system set to be implemented at the start of next year will improve the nation’s justice system, a survey released Tuesday by the Judicial Yuan showed.
The result reflects an increase in public confidence in the system since the Citizen Judges Act, which provides the system’s legal basis, cleared the Legislature’s floor in 2020, according to the survey conducted in June this year.
The same survey was also carried out in November 2020, May 2021, and September 2021.
The Act stipulates that criminal cases warranting a prison term of at least 10 years or premeditated crimes that resulted in death are to be reviewed by a collegiate bench comprising three career judges and six citizen judges starting from Jan 1, 2023.
Asked if they agreed with the statement that the lay judge system would advance the nation’s judiciary, 82.2 percent of respondents said they did, representing an increase from 81.7 percent last year and 64 percent in 2020, the survey showed.
Meanwhile, 13.7 percent said they disagreed with the aforementioned statement, while 4.1 percent were undecided or abstained.
The amount of people that have heard about the policy has also seen a marked increase, with 76.2 percent of respondents this year saying they had heard about it — an increase of 20 percentage points from the results in 2020, which showed 56 percent knew of the system.
On whether they would assist in the adjudication of cases under the lay judge system, 60.8 percent of respondents said that they would, a decrease of 2.7 percentage points compared to the number in 2021, suggesting that the public is still hesitant about participating in the system despite having some degree of understanding of it.
Asked how many days they could set aside to take part in the review of a case under the system, 29.5 percent of respondents said “no more than three days,” 15.1 percent said they would be “willing to comply regardless of the time needed to review a case,” and 11.8 percent said “six to seven days,” the survey showed.
Those who were “unwilling to participate” accounted for 11.6 percent, while 13 percent were unsure or abstained, it showed.
The survey was conducted among Republic of China citizens living on Taiwan or on the nation’s outlying islands who were at least 23 years old and eligible to serve as lay judges.
It gathered 1,068 valid samples through telephone interviews, with a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Judicial Yuan spokesman Chang Yung-hung (???) said the government had made efforts to inform the public about the lay judge system since President Tsai Ing-wen (???) promulgated the Citizen Judges Act in August 2020.
The efforts have paid off with the increase in people’s awareness and approval of the system, as well as their willingness to participate in it, Chang said.
The Judicial Yuan said that it would continue to raise public awareness about the system and make the necessary preparations before it takes effect next year to further boost the public’s confidence in the policy.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel