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Taiwan’s Transformation of Its Criminal Justice System Gelatt lecture addresses sweeping changes
Daniel Ping Yu, Research Fellow in Chinese Law at the NYU School of Law, with H.F. Huang, a Taiwanese High Court judge, and J.P. Wang of the National Taiwan University College of Law.
he lessons learned from the recent upheaval of the Taiwanese criminal justice system were the focus of the ninth annual Timothy A. Gelatt Dialogue on Law and Development in Asia. Hosted by the Law School, the dialogue was entitled “Criminal Justice and Chinese PoliticalLegal Culture: Recent Hope from Taiwan?” Since 1997, in conjunction with the island’s recent democratization, Taiwan’s criminal justice system has undergone a
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transformation as hundreds of provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP) have been amended, implementing a move from an inquisitorial system to an adversarial system that went into high gear in 2002. One of the leading architects of these changes, Professor J.P. Wang of the National Taiwan University College of Law, said the shifts included the adoption of American-style rules of evidence; the termination of prosecutors’ rights to issue detention orders of
Europe’s Economic Power European Commission President Romano Prodi talks about growing interdependence udience members may have had to strain to hear soft-spoken Romano Prodi, but the European Commission president’s message heralding the European Union’s growing global economic force was loud and clear. Prodi, who spoke to about 300 students and faculty at the NYU School of Law’s Vanderbilt Hall in November 2003, discussed both the push for enlargement of the E.U. into central and eastern Europe and a successful E.U. constitutional convention. The European statesman, noting the union’s expansion from 15 to 25 member states early in 2004, said the additional inclu-
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sion of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 would bring 500 million people into the Union. “It will be the biggest economic unit in the world, in terms of income and in terms of trade,” said Prodi, who expressed hope that the Balkan states, Turkey, and former Soviet Union republics will possess the economic and political stability, and dedication to democracy and human rights to join the union at a later time. Those values, he said, are central to the E.U.’s very existence: “The definition of Europe is a union of minorities, because there is no majority. Europe is a union of people and of nations, not like the United
suspects and search warrants; and the increased rights of defendants and their counsel, such as the right to confront witnesses, the right to remain silent and the right to cross-examine witnesses. Wang was joined by several luminaries of East Asian legal studies. NYU School of Law Professor Jerome Cohen, one of the leading international experts in East Asian law, moderated the panel, which included Law School professors Holly Maguigan and Frank Upham; Daniel Yu, a Law School research fellow; Jonathan Hecht, deputy director of the China Law Center at Yale Law School; and H.F. Huang, a Taiwanese High Court judge. Wang and Cohen agreed that Taiwan’s move toward democracy and an independent media have been crucial for judicial reforms. Wang said that intense public and media scrutiny—as well as increased pay— have virtually wiped out corruption from the Taiwanese judiciary. Prosecutors and judges are now given good apartments by the state, along with pay that exceeds that of professors or mayors. In addition, the public and media will turn their full attention to even “the whiff of corruption charges,” he said. Wang emphasized that a series of unique events since 1997 had helped prompt change. For instance, in a celebrated bank robbery case, the police announced they had a confession from a suspect who reportedly had been tortured and not allowed the benefit of counsel. After the suspect committed suicide by jumping off a bridge, the real perpetrator of the crime was found. The resulting public outrage led to the adoption of a rightto-counsel rule. ■
States, and will always be a union of nations.” Prodi also discussed the difficulties in drafting the E.U. constitution, finished in July 2003 and now under review, following almost two decades of attempts at constitutional reform. He cautioned that many difficult issues have yet to be resolved, including standards for the amendment process and the new constitution’s call for a uniform E.U. foreign policy. After his speech, Prodi took questions, including one on the future of Europe’s relationship with the United States. Acknowledging there had been important differences between them on Kyoto, the International Criminal Court, and Iraq, Prodi affirmed that the two world powers share the same basic values. Prodi, who was a professor of industrial policy at the University of Bologna for 18 years, served as Italy’s prime minister from mid-1996 until November 1998. He was seen
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