Regime unchanged

On July 8, 2011, the Committee on Reassessing the Reorganization Reform of the Judicial Yuan (司法院定位改革成效評估委員會) finalized its policy recommendations on the very subject matter it was tasked to reassess. As part of a blue ribbon commission on judicial reform the Judicial Yuan initiated earlier that year, the Committee concluded, in essence, that the decade-long legislative campaign to transform the Judicial Yuan – from being principally the supreme judicial administrative agency into the highest court of the land – was a mistake. This campaign arose from one of the policy agreements reached in the National Judicial Reform Conference (全國司法改革會議) in 1999, but the subsequent two judicial administrations, under the leadership of Dr. Weng Yueh-sheng (翁岳生) and Dr. Lai In-jaw (賴英照), had sought in vain to push through the implementing legislation. Chaired by Justice-and-Vice-President of the Judicial Yuan Dr. Su Yeong-chin (蘇永欽), the Committee had since persuaded the Judicial Yuan to abandon such a regime-changing reorganization project and seek instead some moderate reforms of the status quo. To a large extent, the Committee’s recommendations appear to be a replay of what Dr. Su, then a law professor and a member of a similar advisory committee, had proposed and persuaded the Judicial Yuan to do in 1997. ¹