Establishing an Immediate Interlocutory Appeal System for Detention Must Balance Human Rights

According to reports, the Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice exchanged initial views yesterday on establishing an "immediate interlocutory appeal against detention" system, planning to pursue legislative amendments. Specifically, when a court of first instance issues a ruling dismissing a detention request, the prosecution may "immediately" file an interlocutory appeal with a higher court. Pending the higher court's ruling, the first-instance court would issue a "temporary detention order" to temporarily detain the suspect, thereby preventing a recurrence of cases like that of Hsueh Ch'iu, who was previously released due to a "misjudgment" by a first-instance judge.

Basically, the intention of the courts and ministries to establish an immediate interlocutory appeal system for detention is commendable; however, how to balance human rights protection and investigative efficiency in terms of execution techniques is the key issue. First, the persons entitled to file an immediate interlocutory appeal should include defendants whose detention has been ordered by a first-instance court. Influenced by the "warnings from the past" in previous cases such as Lo Fu-chu, Liu Tai-ying, and Hsueh Ch'iu, the prosecution is eager to remedy the situation through an immediate interlocutory appeal system, which is understandable in principle. However, relative to defendants who might also be wrongfully subjected to detention due to a "misjudgment" by a first-instance judge, they should likewise be granted a corresponding right to an immediate interlocutory appeal to be fair. Otherwise, once the fact that a defendant has been wrongfully detained becomes a reality, what good does it do even if the interlocutory appeal succeeds and they were detained in vain?

Second, in order to save time, detention interlocutory appeal cases should not fall under the jurisdiction of the High Courts; instead, they should be handled by a newly formed collegiate panel within the same-level District Court. Moreover, the appellate court should render its own ruling directly (rather than remanding the case), and no further appeal should be allowed against the appellate ruling. This aims to determine whether detention is warranted within the shortest possible time, avoiding wasted time in the transportation of case files back and forth, which could delay investigative steps or infringe upon the defendant's personal liberty. Since an immediate interlocutory appeal system is to be adopted, first-instance judges—whether granting or denying detention—should not need to write lengthy reasoning (firstly to prevent investigative secrets from being leaked, and secondly to save operational time). Legislative amendments should be adopted concurrently to introduce simplified rulings (standardizing the ruling format with brief reasoning). As for the so-called "temporary detention order" issued by the court based on preservation necessity after a party files an interlocutory appeal against an unfavorable ruling, the duration of such temporary detention should naturally be as short as possible. Considering the workload capacity of the same-level collegiate court acting as the second-instance appellate court and the protection of the defendant's personal liberty, it seems inappropriate to temporarily detain the defendant for more than forty-eight hours.

After all, the immediate interlocutory appeal system for detention is a special criminal procedure. In addition to meeting practical investigative needs, amending the law to add this provision must also balance human rights protection, thereby providing justification for simplifying procedures and curtailing appellate remedies based on time considerations.

※ Published in: China Times