The LAF is an organization founded by the Judicial Yuan under the Legal Aid Act in December 2003, so as to provide assistance mainly to those who need legal advice but cannot afford legal fees. Through the LAF, suspects can receive free legal services because the lawyers are paid by the organization. Applicants are restricted to certain groups, however. Only low-income suspects of compulsory defense cases and those with mental disabilities will be eligible.
"Our goal is to advance the protection of human rights and to prevent cases like the one of Su Chien-ho from happening again," Joanne Tsai, an LAF lawyer, said Sept. 13. Su, Liu Bing-lang and Chuang Lin-hsun were sentenced to death for murdering a couple in Sijhih City, Taipei County in 1991. The controversy over this pending case was that it was largely based on confessions, which were retrieved through torture, according to the Sijhih Trio Vindication Mobilization Group. The group consists of human-rights activists and judicial reformers who defend the innocence of Su and the other two suspects.
The NPA and the LAF agreed that defense attorneys could sit near the suspects and had the right to object to improper means of questioning, such as violence, fraud or exhausting examination. The attorney may read and correct the case file if it does not correspond with what the suspect stated. Nevertheless, the NPA has not agreed to prohibit recording or monitoring of conversations between suspects and their attorneys.
The new measure has been put on a one-year trial period Sept. 17 in all the district public prosecutors' offices and district courts in 15 cities and counties around the island where there are LAF branches. Police stations will not start the program until the training of the officers is completed, however.
Justice Minister Shih Mao-lin said Sept. 11 that it was a worthwhile policy and if all suspects could be included in this program in the future, human-rights protection will be more widespread. He also claimed that while there might be resistance from the police in the beginning, the program would work better if there was more communication.
The Ministry of Justice welcomed this policy, Jiang Huei-min, director of the MOJ's Department of Prosecutorial Affairs, said in a Sept. 11 Central News Agency report. He stated that Article 245 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has already entitled attorneys to be present and give opinions during questioning. Article 245 also regulates that such presence can be prohibited, however, if the defense attorneys try to jeopardize the investigation or help form a conspiracy with accomplices or witnesses.
The LAF program also won the support of minority groups. The Sijhih Trio Vindication Mobilization Group petitioned at the door of the Ministry of Justice Aug. 13, asking the MOJ and the NPA to approve this measure. They stressed that if Su had been assisted by a lawyer, he would not have been forced by torture to confess to the murder.
Tsai said Sept. 13 that the LAF planned this measure last year. The foundation invited Anthony Edwards to give speeches Aug. 29 to Sept. 1, to share his experience of promoting the presence of lawyers during police questioning in Great Britain. The former president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors' Association, Edwards wrote the first draft of the British legal-aid plan in 1986. According to Tsai, Edwards explained that it took the British police 20 years to change their attitudes; the police resisted this measure in the beginning, but now they welcomed the presence of lawyers during questioning.
NPA officials said that the agency had already started a reform program on Sept. 5, 2006, under which suspects had to choose a defense lawyer. This recent LAF plan was an extension of the NPA program, CNA reported Sept. 11.
Tainan District Public Prosecutors' Office pointed out that investigators would ask the suspects if they wanted lawyers to be present, but this seldom happened because of the cost. At present, the questioning was filmed and recorded to create an accurate record, the CNA report added Sept. 11.
Write to Amber Wu at amber0207@mail.gio.gov.tw