Submittal of Draft Act Governing Participation in Trying Cases by Experts Halted by Head of Judicial Yuan.

Judicial Yuan spent some five years drawing up the proposed draft Statute for Investigational Participation in Trying Cases by Experts but the submittal of the draft Act was urgently stopped by Weng Yueh-Sheng, Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court and President of the Judicial Yuan.   

Chief Justice Weng is concerned over the issue that allowing experts to try court cases may compromise the neutrality of the court as some special areas in Taiwan are still differentiated by schools.  Therefore, he instructed that the submittal of the proposed draft to the Legislative Yuan for review be put on hold.  Some of the members participating in drawing up the draft Act find it difficult to understand why Chief Justice Weng had not considered addressing the issue until after the proposed draft was ready for submittal to the Legislative Yuan.  As a matter of fact, quite a few law practitioners, prosecutors and judges raised the same challenge in the drafting process.  

However, Chief Justice Weng did not ask the Criminal Department of the Judicial Yuan to discontinue the drafting of the proposed law governing the participation by ordinary civilians in trying major criminal cases.  

Court cases that may call for judgment by experts include civil cases, criminal cases and administrative actions involving special aspects that need to be determined based on special knowledge.  Such civil cases include cases on disputes over medical treatment, construction project, copyright, trademark, patent, circuit layout, trade secret, pollution, securities financing, maritime affairs and labor contracts.  Criminal cases include cases involving offenses against public safety, computer-assisted crimes, death or serious injury resulted from wrongful medical treatment or traffic rules violations, offenses against labor safety, sexual assault, infringement of copyright, trademark, securities or futures fraud, and cases involving juvenile offenders.  (2006.3)

/EMA