Future Directions

Policy Objectives and Priorities of Ministry of Justice in 2022

Ministry of Justice is Taiwan’s competent authority for judicial affairs including prosecutorial administration, crime protection, correction, integrity policy, administrative enforcement, legal consultation, legal affairs of the Executive Yuan, and training of judiciary. The affiliated agencies are divided into five systems: prosecution, investigation, integrity policy, correction, and administrative enforcement, and each performs duties in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations.

In order to maintain equity and justice, the Ministry will continue to implement judicial reforms, focus on drug prevention and control, promote correction system, implement judicial protection, expand mutual legal assistance, establish an incorruptible government, enhance human rights protection, improve and modernize the judicial system, and strengthen administrative enforcement. Additionally, the policy plan also focuses on the implementation of the judicial reform resolutions, the detection of drugs in schools and the suppression of drug recidivism, and making good use of innovative technology to enhance the effectiveness of governance, with the aim of creating a happy home for all people, in which to live and work in peace and health for generations to come.

According to the 2022 guidelins and budget quota of Executive Yuan and the current social status , Ministry of Justice enacts 2022 administrative plan as follows:

1. Crack down on drug crimes, strengthen the recidivism prevention mechanism, and seize the confiscated proceeds of crime to effectively deter crime.

• Strengthen and implement drug prevention strategies: Implement the second phase of the new generation anti-drug strategy action plan, promote the "Repeat Offender Prevention Initiative", and provide "Thorough Infiltration Protection" to reduce new drug offenses and curb drug recidivism. Regarding major offenses such as drug trafficking, severe penalties are imposed, and the confiscation system is expanded to thoroughly deprive offenders of their ill-gotten gains. Regarding minor offenses or drug users, appropriate treatment is provided for recovery and rehabilitation, so that they can be completely free from the harmful effects of drugs. Proactively building a database for the identification of emerging substances of abuse, expanding the use of rapid screening inspection kits with patented fluorescent technology by the investigators, and improving the capacity of drug inspection and technological drug detection functions to jointly prevent the spread of emerging drugs.
• Vigorously investigate and confiscate criminal gains, and enhance the effectiveness of preventing money laundering and combating terrorist financing: Strengthen the efforts to eradicate organized crime and combat telecommunications fraud; prevent the disruption of homeland conservation; crack down on various types of crimes, such as economic, financial, and food safety, investigate and seize criminal gains; implement the policies of preventing money laundering and combating terrorist financing, and adopt an approach of money recovery and escape prevention, to help cut off criminal incentives, so as to effectively deter crimes. Promote the signing of Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with foreign countries on anti-money laundering and combating terrorism financing; increase the exchange of financial intelligence with relevant agencies abroad, and implement money laundering crime investigations. In addition, actively participate in the meetings of international anti-money laundering organizations, to help keep abreast of changes and trends in international anti-money laundering regulations and to align with international standards, so as to strengthen the domestic money laundering prevention mechanisms, enforce the tracking and investigation of money laundering crimes, and help create a sustainable environment with a transparent financial flow and financial stability.

2.Promote international and cross-strait judicial cooperation and exchange, and continue to promote the signing of mutual legal assistance agreements to jointly combat cross-border crimes.

• Continue to promote the signing of judicial mutual assistance agreements to strengthen international judicial cooperation.
• Implement the pragmatic expansion of international and cross-strait cooperation in the civil and criminal judicial mutual assistance programs, and the construction of a diversified cooperation network.
• Unify judicial forces and establish a model of international and cross-strait cooperation in combating cross-border crimes, so as to jointly tackle illegal activities.
• Improve the legal systems of judicial mutual assistance programs and study and research relevant legislation.
• Construct a more stringent security protection network, enhance the capacity and quality of security protection work, and prevent the infiltration of foreign spies, in order to collectively safeguard national security.

3. Implement the United Nations Convention against Corruption, continuously advocate for a legal system that protects whistleblowers, and refine the clean-government procurement platform.

• Implement the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and organize an International Review Conference: Implement UNCAC on a voluntary basis and organize an International Review Conference on the Second National Report. Domestic and foreign experts and scholars will be invited to participate in the conference to review and refine the effectiveness of our anti-corruption measures, so as to help Taiwan converge with the international trend of clean government.
• Expedite investigation activities by developing and implementing technological systems, establish relevant databases and create intelligent anti-corruption mechanisms, so as to enhance the effectiveness of such investigations.
• The prosecutors, as assigned by the Ministry of Justice, shall coordinate and direct preliminary investigations, integrating the "pre-term case handling" protocol to enhance the efficiency and quality of investigations; refine the investigation, strengthen the overall corruption purging and prevention forces to help increase the corruption conviction rate; organize corruption purging training to refine the investigation activities; strengthen lateral communications concerning corruption cases; encourage whistleblowing and promote a legal system that protects whistleblowers, so as to  strengthen the anti-corruption legal system.
• Strengthen the corruption prevention mechanisms in public and private sectors, promote the procurement integrity platform for the relevant authorities, and reduce the integrity risks involving major procurement cases; promote moral values and honesty culture in public and private sectors.
• Strengthen the maintenance measures that protect official secrets and agency security, make every effort to protect state official secrets and prevent the occurrence of harmful and sabotage incidents.

4. Enhance prosecutorial effectiveness and strengthen the criminal justice system

• Continue to implement judicial reform policies: Reform the evaluation and dismissal of prosecutor process, and citizens’ participation in trials and other monitoring mechanisms in a transparent manner. Integrate social safety networks, improve the laws concerning victims' participation in lawsuits and channels of information access, and complete the amendment of the Crime Victim Protection Act to protect the rights of crime victims. Establish a credible system for the custody of evidence and standard operating procedures for scientific forensics, implement a policy on multi-disciplinary treatment of drug offenders, and promote the protection of whistleblowers in the public and private sectors and the anti-corruption laws, so as to create a modern legal system that protects human rights and meets the expectations of the people.
• Implement the establishment of advanced databases and digitization of epidemiological information, plan a CT-aided examination and autopsy, develop forensic identification resources, improve the quality of forensic identification of child and juvenile fatalities in Taiwan, and use molecular pathology to solve difficult identification cases. Enrich forensic toxicological testing equipment and construct modern laboratories with international accreditation credentials to enhance emerging drug testing technology and capacity, and thus help reduce emerging drug hazards. Establish the advanced technologies for biological evidences examination and implement the Ministry of Justice's goal of scientific and technological governance, in order to improve the quality of biological evidences examination. In addition, apply the technologies to cases, such as unidentified bodies testing, relationship testing, and family tracing, to strengthen the capacity to identify forensic evidences and enhance human rights protection.
• Promote the smart transformation of legal services, construct a digital technology-based case handling and innovative service environment, strengthen the information security protection system, and optimize the effectiveness of justice administration. Based on the development last year, the AI assistant system for prosecutors will continue to enhance its functions to foster the public prosecutors' efficiency at reviewing the dockets, preparing arguments and court activities, so as to improve the performance of public prosecutions to be more meticulous and effective.
• Promote the expansion (relocation) and internal renovation of the office premises of subordinate agencies and equipment procurement programs to enhance the overall administrative efficiency of legal affairs.

5. Create an appropriate and conducive space for corrections, construct a technological environment, and develop professional correctional treatment.

• Constructing suitable and reasonable space for treatment: continue to promote new (expansion and relocation) construction projects of correctional institutions to provide new space for accommodations and alleviate the overcrowding problem in housing; and, continue to improve the living environment of the inmates, enhance the treatment quality, and protect the inmates' human rights.
• Continue to promote smart prisons and strengthen technology-assisted correctional security measures: continue to update the smart security monitoring system and refine the user interface to help improve the monitoring technology. In addition, continue to collect facial features and behavioral images of the inmates to expand the database knowledge for use as the basis for subsequent analysis applications. Biometric technology is used along with the secure building layout of the agency to expand the control functions of the inmate activity area; In cases of security incidents, security personnel can immediately make on-site determinations because of these enhanced features and control important passages accordingly, thus reducing the chances of expanding an incident.
• Scientific evidence on drug offender treatment with seamless transition to reintegration: continue best efforts to replenish the manpower of psychosocial treatment professionals and for drug offender case management staff, enhance the capacity of professional counseling and strengthen the social reintegration transition mechanism, accumulate practical experience and continue the rolling review and revision of treatment policies, based on empirical research, so as to improve the overall treatment effectiveness.

6. Promote community treatment, victim protection services and related crime prevention and legal information outreach

• Construct professional teams, expand resource networks, connect the systems of rehabilitation and protection, health, labor, social affairs, and police, and promote diversified community treatment networks.
• Facilitate juvenile delinquency related prevention programs and measures, and promote recidivism prevention mechanisms.
• Integrate civil organizations and social resources to help popularize legal education; cooperate with the Inter-Yuan operation of the Citizens' Law Promotion Team on implementing the resolution of the National Conference on Justice Reform to increase citizens' legal education.

7. Implement the international review mechanism for human rights and complete installation of the civil and administrative legal system.

• Continue the process of international review of the third national reports on the two Conventions, develop a national human rights action plan, and actively implement and manage the examination of various improvements aiming to conform to international human rights norms.

• Intensify human rights education, popularize human rights awareness, strengthen dialogues with civil organizations, expand the scope of domestic and foreign human rights exchanges, so as to share and learn from others’ human rights protection experiences.

• Continue to review the laws and regulations relevant to the two conventions.

• Provide consultations on laws and regulations to various agencies, organize information dissemination activities for the promotion of laws and regulations, and complete implementation of the civil and administrative legal system.

8. Enhance the effectiveness of administrative implementation, strengthen the quality of service to the public.

• Promote the electronic document exchange of administrative enforcement orders, expand the scope of application of electronic enforcement certificates, and continue to process new cases within the case management system, and develop and build a "data exchange platform" to enhance enforcement efficiency. Continuously promote various convenient payment measures, such as virtual accounts, credit card payments and electronic payments, to increase the obligors' voluntary payment rate and enhance the quality of services to the public. Promote cross-agency collaborative liaison and project execution, so as to enhance enforcement efficacy.
• Commit to procedural justice and improve enforcement procedures. Take the initiative in caring for the disadvantaged and provide leniency measures to assist them in becoming self-reliant. Take strong enforcement measures in cases of large outstanding debts; make good use of means such as seizure of deposits, attachments, auction of personal and real properties, restrictions on leaving the country, court petitions for arrest or detention, and issue orders prohibiting living beyond the usual level of ordinary people, so as to compel the obligors to fulfill their legal obligations to pay, and realize social fairness and justice.