Nantou District Court Chief Prosecutor Lin Bangliang "Hong Junpei Culture and Education Foundation" public-interest lecture

(Taiwan Business Daily News) Last Saturday, this newspaper and the Hong Junpei Culture and Education Foundation invited Lin Bangliang, Chief Prosecutor of the Nantou District Prosecutors Office, to speak on "The Social Justice Effect of Deferred Prosecution," explaining to the public what significance and effect deferred prosecution dispositions have for the modern rule of law.

If you want to know what "deferred prosecution" is, you must first understand the meaning of "prosecution" under the Code of Criminal Procedure. A person who violates a crime stipulated by the state's criminal law must be punished by criminal penalty. As for whether the crime should be established, and which criminal penalties should be imposed, a decision can only be made after a court conducts a trial in accordance with the procedures stipulated by the Code of Criminal Procedure. To demonstrate the fairness of trials, a court may not arbitrarily try criminal cases occurring in society; it must go through the prosecution procedure before the court can conduct a trial based on the "prosecution" that has been initiated. Therefore, the prosecution is the object of the court's trial.

What then is the content of the prosecution? The content of the prosecution includes the defendant who is to be tried by the court and the facts of the crime. Who has the right to initiate a "prosecution" to request a court trial? The Code of Criminal Procedure divides initiated prosecutions into two categories: a prosecution initiated by a prosecutor representing the state in pursuing crime is called a "public prosecution"; one initiated by a crime victim is called a "private prosecution." Deferred prosecution is one of the measures provided for in public prosecution procedures to transform prosecution. A private prosecutor in private prosecution procedures does not have these rights.

The meaning of deferred prosecution is easy to understand literally, because the word "defer" means to postpone. Adding the word "defer" to the two words "prosecution" clearly tells us to postpone a case that was originally to be prosecuted in court and temporarily not prosecute it. As mentioned above, the "prosecution" to be brought before the court includes two parts: the defendant and the facts of the crime. Therefore, a deferred prosecution case must be one in which both the defendant and the facts of the crime have already been confirmed, and it is merely temporarily not prosecuted. In cases where the facts of the crime are clear and the evidence is conclusive, in order to open a path to reform for a defendant who sincerely repents, the prosecutor is allowed the authority to make a deferred prosecution disposition for such a defendant.

If during the fixed period of deferred prosecution the defendant maintains good behavior and does not violate the conditions of deferred prosecution, then the criminal facts on which the deferred prosecution is based are wiped out in one stroke, sparing the defendant the burden of litigation and criminal punishment. The current deferred prosecution system provides that as long as the defendant has not committed an extremely heinous felony, the means of committing the crime were not very cruel, the attitude after the crime is good, and the victim has expressed a willingness to forgive, there is a chance to receive a deferred prosecution disposition from the prosecutor. When making a deferred prosecution, the prosecutor, in accordance with Article 253-2, may order the defendant to fulfill certain conditions or burdens, such as apologizing to the victim, writing a letter of repentance, making appropriate compensation for damages to the victim, paying a certain amount to the public treasury or a designated public-interest organization or local self-governing body, and providing no less than 40 hours of labor service to a designated public-interest organization, local self-governing body, or community.

If during the period of deferred prosecution the defendant intentionally commits another crime punishable by imprisonment or a heavier penalty, or before the deferred prosecution intentionally committed another crime and during the deferred prosecution period receives a sentence of imprisonment or a heavier penalty, or fails to perform the conditions or burdens that should be performed, then in accordance with Article 353-3, Paragraph 1, the prosecutor may, by ex officio decision or upon application by the complainant, revoke the original deferred prosecution disposition by written order and restore the original investigation procedure.

Functions of deferred prosecution disposition (for the government): reduce the financial burden of the judiciary and prison administration, increase national treasury revenue, enable criminal punishment to play a dual role of deterrence and education, and shift toward replacing completed execution of sentence, innovating the function and value of the judicial system.

Functions of deferred prosecution disposition (for society): resolve the social problems of minor criminal cases through social forces, integrate community resources, and through subsidies from deferred prosecution disposition funds and assistance from obligatory labor service, encourage people living in the community to devote themselves to community building, which helps awaken collective community consciousness and shapes a high-quality cultural function of public affairs. It provides competent authorities with a more concrete reference basis for evaluating and allocating subsidies to communities or public-interest organizations. It injects vitality into the development of communities and associations.

Functions of deferred prosecution disposition (for victims): consider the victim's wishes. In cases involving a complainant or victim, before making a deferred prosecution disposition, the prosecutor should first seek the opinion of the complainant or victim regarding the period of the deferred prosecution disposition and the matters listed in each subparagraph of Article 253-2, Paragraph 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that the defendant is designated to observe or perform. (Point 3, Subparagraph 4 of the Directions for Prosecution Authorities Handling Deferred Prosecution Dispositions); value the victim's feelings and fill the function of compensating the victim for property or non-property damage.

Functions of deferred prosecution disposition (for the defendant): no need to lose sleep over lengthy and unpredictable litigation procedures and expenses, gain an opportunity for social feedback to make up for wrongdoing, remove labeling, avoid problems such as family, social, or criminal contagion derived from short-term imprisonment, and allow crime compensation and normal social life to proceed in parallel.

Hong Junpei Culture and Education Foundation 103rd Year Public-Interest Lecture