Criminal Code Amended; Written Judgment of Misdemeanor Simplified.

The Legislative Yuan has passed the third reading of the “Amendment to the Partial Criminal Code”. It has simplified the content of “the written judgment of 6-month imprisonment for misdemeanor”. This amendment stipulates that, in case of a guilty conviction which is pronounced to be subject to a sentence of less than 6 months, or a detention convertible to a fine, or a fine, or a remission of punishment, the written judgment may only contain the judicial form, the facts, the evidence of the offense, the reasons for not adopting evidence that is in the favor of the defendant, and the treaties that are applicable. 

Last September 1, the new Criminal Code was enacted and became effective. Besides the applicable simplified judgment and the simplified procedures, “a case tried by a full court” should be applied to all cases that are suitable to use ordinary procedure and at the same time determine whether the defendant has the facts of an offense through the proceeding of the cross-examination, let the first trial be the solid trial of fact prior to the establishment of the pyramid litigation framework. Since the time required for cross-examination is fairly long, and for the purpose of reducing the load that judges have when producing written judgments of conviction, and to leave the judges enough time to focus on more serious and complicated cases, the current Code of Criminal Procedure, with respect to the stipulation for the ways of producing written judgment for the conviction, has been amended. (2004.06)

CYJ/SH