Newsletter
CRIMINAL APPEALS TO ADOPT POST-FACTO REVIEW SYSTEM
To reduce delays arising from the fact that ap-pealed cases are reexamined in full in the sec-ond-instance, the Judicial Yuan's Criminal Pro-cedure Revisions Committee is considering changing the appeal procedure of the sec-ond-instance to a post-facto review system.
Under the current system of full retrials, the ap-pellate court has to undertake a complete new examination of the case appealed against with regard to the determination of facts, the investi-gation of evidence, the application of laws, and sentencing, so that in effect the entire procedure of the first-instance is repeated. This leads to serious delays in hearing appeals, and wastes judicial resources.
Under the post-facto review system, appellate courts should base their proceedings on the first-instance judgment. They should first re-view whether the trial court made errors in its determination of the facts and its application of the law, and only if it finds grounds for the ap-peal will it undertake a further reexamination of the case. In principle, the appellate court will not redetermine facts already established in the original trial judgment.
According to a resolution passed by the Revi-sions Committee, in future the scope of exami-nation of evidence in second-instance proceed-ings will be: (a) means of evidence introduced before the end of the oral proceedings but not investigated or not admitted—such evidence may be investigated in order to discover the truth and to protect the rights and interests of parties; (b) errors in the determination of facts in the original judgment, and evidence that could not be introduced before the end of the oral pro-ceedings for reasons beyond the control of the party concerned; and (c) matters arising out of sentencing after the end of the oral proceedings.