Work overload of judicial personnel has long been one of the focuses of judicial reform. In 2017, a judge surnamed Pao suffered from a stroke and passed out in the middle of a court meeting. His colleagues said that, Pao is a very responsible and hard-working judge who had been awarded for excellence in performance. In recent years, Pao often had to work until late night due to outstanding number of cases that were allocated to his court, his colleague said. Work overload is an issue not only for judges, but also for prosecutors. In 2019, a clerk in a prosecutors’ office committed suicide after suffering both mentally and physically—he was unable to take leaves to handle his divorce because of heavy workload. Shortage of manpower not only leads to overwork of judicial personnel, but also have negative impacts on quality of judicial investigation and trials.
Too few new judges, too many retirees
In a press conference in May, the Judicial Yuan said that courts of all levels receive over 3.5 million new cases per year, which are shared by 2,127 judges, meaning that one judge must handle 1,646 cases a year in average. To ensure that people’s rights are well protected, cases must be dealt with in a timely manner, and many complicated cases have to be carefully investigated to make sure justice is done. Therefore, judges only have limited time to complete their works, which means their actual workhours are shockingly long.
In 2007, the Judicial Yuan released the Survey Report on Average Work Hours of Judges, which pointed out that, in Taipei and Yuan District Courts, the average work hour for a judge is 60 hours per week. The report also found that a judge would work more than 8 hours a day on 60% of workdays, meaning that a judge often has to work overtime on 60% of his/her workdays. Moreover, it’s common for judges to work in the late night, and majority of judges attribute overtime work to excessive number of cases.
Judges who responded to the survey said that they would use 70% of their work time for trial-rated tasks. “Writing” tops with occupying 38.2% of judges’ time, they spend 19.8% of time reading case documents, and 15.4% of time presiding over court meetings. Other work-related activities include “attending conferences”, which occupies 5.1% of their time, “commenting on official reports” 4.9%, “data collection” 3.2%, “reviewing” 1.7%, “administrative work” 1.6%, “attending meetings on verdicts” 1.4%, “inquest” 1.2%, “on duty” 1%, and “others” 0.7%--which includes mentoring trainee judges and presiding over auctions.
Although there has not been another survey on judges’ work hours in recent years, apparently their burden has not been reduced. According to the Annual Judicial Statistics Report, the lowest-level district courts handled 3,512,989 cases in 2020, including 239,824 old cases and 3,273,165 new cases. In civil court, a judge completed in average 74.36 cases a month, which increased by 9—or 13.3%--compared to the monthly average of 65.65 cases in 2015. As for criminal court, a judge in average completed 58.92 cases. Although it had decreased by 1.4 compared to the monthly average of 60.35 in 2015, when we look at the average number of days needed for each case, it was a growth of 19 days per case from 66.52 days in 2016 to 85.46 days per case in 2020.
According to Judicial Yuan’s Human Resources Department, it would take more than a decade to train a judge—including 4 years of university, passing the judiciary exam, going through 2-phase trainings of 5 years and 1 year, respectively, as an expectant judge, and passing qualification exams before becoming a full sitting judge. Hence, there is usually insufficient number of new judges to fill the vacancies of approximately 50 retiring judges annually.
Too little growth in manpower, too much growth in number of cases for prosecutors
Shortage of manpower is also an issue for prosecutors. Participants in a conference organized by the Judicial Reform Foundation in May pointed out that, in Taiwan, a district prosecutor are appointed to 36 investigative cases in average a month, which is four times the number in Japan. On top of that, a prosecutor in Taiwan may be allocated as many as 155 cases if taking into account other duties such as executing sentences and inquests.
According to Annual Statistics Report of the Ministry of Justice, district prosecutors’ offices received over 2,170,000 new cases, and it took an average of 53.49 days to close a case. Compared to 2015, when district prosecutors had 2,010,000 new cases and took an average of 50.62 days to close a case, number of cases grew by 160,000—or 7.8%--in 5 years. However, the increase in manpower for prosecutors was no comparable to the growth of cases. In 2020, there were 1,178 prosecutors, and in 2015, there were 1,161 of them, which means only 17 new prosecutors were added, and the growth rate of manpower was only 1.46%.
An overloaded judiciary system would harm the qualify of the judiciary and rights of the people
When judges and prosecutors have too many cases, not only judges and prosecutors would overwork, clerks, their assistants, judiciary police officers, and the entire system overworks, and harms the performance of the judiciary. In 2010, a judge surnamed Chen was unable to finish the judgment by the when it was scheduled to be handed down. To prevent the case from being marked as “delayed” in the system, he finished the conclusion, and copied and pasted operative portion from another unrelated case, hoping to finish the operative portion afterwards. However, since he did not explain the situation to the clerk, the clerk sent the mistaken full judgment to the plaintiff and the defendants.
Incidents when judges and prosecutors are punished for delaying cases are not uncommon. In 2021, in order to follow the regulation that a prosecutor must conduct one investigation every 3 months, a prosecutor forged records. After the scandal was uncovered, the media also found that he had written many posts saying he was stressed out on social media, and he even missed the opportunity to see his mother one last time before she passed away because he was occupied with a case.
The statue of Lady Justice covers her eyes, with a balance on one hand, and a sword on the other. Her image symbolizes that she would try everyone fairly and objectively and bring sanction to the evil. However, if Lady Justice overburdened, would she still be able to keep the balance and keep the trial fair?
In 2020, the Ministry of Justice made a special presentation to the Parliament on manpower allocation and work burden for prosecutors’ offices. The report pointed out that reasons for work overload for prosecutors include that the growth of manpower failed to catch up with the growth of cases. In the recent decade, growths of manpower for most prosecutors’ office positions did not surpass 1%, including prosecutors, prosecutor investigators, probation officers, and judiciary police officers, and the growth was even -0.49% for clerk assistant. The only exception was clerks, which had an average growth of 1.03%.
An overloaded judiciary system would harm the qualify of the judiciary and rights of the people
When judges and prosecutors have too many cases, not only judges and prosecutors would overwork, clerks, their assistants, judiciary police officers, and the entire system overworks, and harms the performance of the judiciary. In 2010, a judge surnamed Chen was unable to finish the judgment by the when it was scheduled to be handed down. To prevent the case from being marked as “delayed” in the system, he finished the conclusion, and copied and pasted operative portion from another unrelated case, hoping to finish the operative portion afterwards. However, since he did not explain the situation to the clerk, the clerk sent the mistaken full judgment to the plaintiff and the defendants.
Incidents when judges and prosecutors are punished for delaying cases are not uncommon. In 2021, in order to follow the regulation that a prosecutor must conduct one investigation every 3 months, a prosecutor forged records. After the scandal was uncovered, the media also found that he had written many posts saying he was stressed out on social media, and he even missed the opportunity to see his mother one last time before she passed away because he was occupied with a case.
The statue of Lady Justice covers her eyes, with a balance on one hand, and a sword on the other. Her image symbolizes that she would try everyone fairly and objectively and bring sanction to the evil. However, if Lady Justice overburdened, would she still be able to keep the balance and keep the trial fair?