Judges selectable in civil proceeding - innovative mechanism to be applied for one year tentatively

The Preliminary Statute Governing Nomination of Judges under Agreement in Civil Proceedings was passed by the Legislative Yuan after final reading yesterday.  Accordingly, as long as the plaintiff and defendant reach some agreement, they may nominate the judge to their satisfaction out of the one hundred odd civil court judges (incl. family courts and summary courts).  In principle, the nominated judge shall not refuse to take charge of the trial.  The statute is enacted for the purpose of easing the load of litigation and avoiding the abuse of judicial resources.

 

Such an innovative mechanism is created by Taiwan solely and to be enforced for one year after three months upon the promulgation of the Statute.  Whether the length of time for enforcing the mechanism should be prolonged or the mechanism should be canceled will be subject to the effect produced after enforcement.

 

“The statute was enacted in order to respect the concerned parties’ right to nominate procedures and to enable them, without prejudicing the public interest, to nominate the judge in charge of the proceeding.  By virtue of this, the people will rely on the judgment increasingly so as to achieve the goal to ease the load of litigation and distribute judicial resources fairly, and also to solidify the subjects of national laws and proceedings.”, said the Secretary-General of the Judicial Yuan, Yang Ren-shou.

 

Article 2 of the statute prescribes that the nomination of the judge under the both concerned parties’ agreement must be carried out when the complaint is filed or before the first hearing for oral argument is held, provided that it must be carried out before the first hearing is held in a preliminary procedure.  Meanwhile, in principle the concerned parties are entitled to nominate an independent judge to take charge of the trial, provided that they are also entitled to nominate three judgments to form a full court insofar as it is required by laws or it refers to a case of first instance that can be handled by a full court.

 

According to Article 6 of the statute, the judge that is nominated shall not be changed or withdrew, unless the nominated judge resigns his post or is not available to take charge of the trial with cause, under which circumstance the concerned parties shall be permitted to nominate another judge within a time limit.  If the concerned parties fail to reach an agreement on the nomination of three judges, each of them shall nominate a judge respectively and then the judges nominated by them respectively should be responsible for nominating a third judge to form a full court with them pursuant to Article 2(3) of the same statute.

 

Articles 3 and 4 of the statute provide the limited workload of each nominated judge so as to prevent unfair work assignment from arising.  In case of any excess in the limited workload, the court shall postpone the cases in order.  Where any concerned party disagrees the court to postpone his case, he may nominate other judges, or he may withdraw his request for nomination of judges and have his case be assigned to the judge nominated at random.

 

Article 5 of the statute refers to the clause related to publication of information, which defines that the court shall publish, from time to time, the names of judges available to be nominated, and shall publish, at the beginning of each month, the number of cases handled by relevant judges, in addition to postponed cases and change in nomination of the judges, for the concerned parties’ reference.

 

    Article 7 of the statute refers to “bypassing appealing procedure”, which defines that no appeal can be filed with the second-instance court other than the Supreme Court against the cases handled by nominated judges.  If the Supreme Court rules that the original judgment should be revoked, it shall give a new judgment on its own.