Amendment to Code of Criminal Procedure regarding non-appealable minor offenses passed

E171108Y9 Dec. 2017(E217)

 Legislators passed the third reading of the draft amendment to partial provisions of the Taiwan Code of Criminal Procedure on November 7, 2017.  According to the draft amendment, the cases which involve the defendant’s misdemeanors punishable by jail sentence for not more than three years and are not appealable to the third instance and also should be concluded by a final second-instance judgment will become appealable if the defendant is found not guilty in the first instance but further found guilty in the second instance.

 Pursuant to Article 376 of the current Code of Criminal Procedure, no appeal shall be filed with the court of the third instance for cases involving minor offenses punishable by imprisonment for a maximum period of three years, detention, or a fine only, and some other cases involving offenses of theft, embezzlement, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, extortion, and receiving swag, for which the court of the second instance has rendered a judgment.

 The draft amendment adds a proviso to the aforesaid Article to remove the unappealable restriction, which proviso indicates that cases involving the offenses specified in Article 376 are not appealable to the court of the third instance, except when they are adjudicated by the court of the first instance by a judgment of acquittal, of exempt from prosecution, case not entertained, or a judgment of mistake in jurisdiction and the court of the second instance vacates the foregoing judgment and renders a guilty judgment on such cases. 

Article 253, 284-1, and Article 376 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are amended as follows. 

Article 253:

If a public prosecutor considers it appropriate not to prosecute a case specified in the first paragraph of Article 376 after having taken into consideration the provisions of Article 57 of the Criminal Code, he/she may make a ruling not to prosecute.

Article 284-1

Trial for the first instance shall be conducted by a panel of judges, unless the case is one of that applies summary trial procedure or summary procedure or is one of those cases involving the offenses specified in the first and second subparagraph of the first paragraph of Article 376.

Article 376

The cases involving the following offenses shall not be appealable to the court of the third instance after being adjudicated by the court of the second instance, except when and only when such cases are adjudicated by the court of the first instance by a judgment of acquittal, of exempt from prosecution, case dismissed, or a judgment of mistake in jurisdiction and the court of the second instance vacates the foregoing judgment and renders a guilty judgment on such cases, the defendant thereof or the individual who has the right to appeal for the defendant’s interests may appeal to the court of the third instance. 

1. Offenses with a maximum punishment of no more than three years imprisonment, detention, or a fine only;
2.  Offense of theft as defined in Articles 320 and 321 of the Criminal Code;
3.  Offense of embezzlement as identified in Article 335 and Paragraph 2 of Article 336 of the Criminal Code;
4.  Offense of fraud specified in Articles 339 and 341 of the Criminal Code;
5.  Offense of breach of fiduciary duty specified in Article 342 of the Criminal Code;
6.  Offense of extortion as set forth in Article 346 of the Criminal Code; and
7.  Offense of receiving swag as indicated in Article 349 of the Criminal Code. 

Where any appeal filed in accordance with the above proviso is dismissed and remanded back to the court of the second instance by the court of the third instance for re-decision, no second appeal may be further filed to the court of the third instance.  (November 2017) 
/CCS

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