Do these women quail in the face of carnage and violence, bribery and collusion? What challenges do they face?
At the beginning of December, as the streets were chilled by a sudden cold front, the Panchiao District Court was a hotbed of activity. Final arguments were being heard in the Ssupientou engineering corruption case, involving Pingtung County Executive Wu Tse-yuan, and a feeding frenzy was on among the media. "The Judge against the Executive," trumpeted one headline. In any event, this mighty judge was not "just a mere woman"-she amazed everyone by daring to detain the county executive.
The lady is a judge
It's time to begin the proceedings, and the bailiff calls out, "All rise!" Bespectacled, delicate-featured and thoroughly feminine Huang Jui-hua, the presiding judge, enters leading a contingent of two other judges and the court reporter. As soon as Huang sits, she begins calling the names of more than 20 male defendants and persons involved with the case, who stand respectfully in a row and await questioning. Listening to the answers, Huang is conscientious and careful. Only her refined voice, an octave above the rest, reveals that she is a woman.
For a judge to detain a county executive is a rarity in the legal world. The move harkens back to the Hualung stock case of five years ago, involving Wong Da-ming and investigated by the prestigious and outspoken prosecutor "Ninja Turtle" Hsu A-kui (kui sounds like "turtle"). After Hsu retired for health reasons, she was succeeded by Huang Jui-hua, who has herself been dubbed the "Legal Girl Rambo."
Besides Huang Jui-hua, a quick glance through the newspaper reveals that the prosecutions in the two big murder cases which have attracted the most attention recently in Taiwan-the assassination of Taoyuan county executive Liu Pang-you, in which eight died, and the murder of Democratic Progressive Party Women's Affairs Department Chief Peng Wan-ju, are coincidentally both being handled by women.
The Liu Pang-you murder was the most brutal in Taiwan's judicial history. Prosecutor Chu Fu-mei, charged with responsibility for directing the case and the only chief prosecutor among the 98 female prosecutors in Taiwan, immediately became a focus of attention after taking on the case. Whether pursing her lips while waving away a TV camera, or facing the lens to make a brief official statement, she is before the public in the media every day. Although the case is in the doldrums now, colleagues still give her a thumbs-up for her work. The front-page photo of Kaohsiung District Prosecutor's Office Prosecutor Chen Mei-yan, dressed in a long skirt, making an appraisal after hurrying to the crime scene, also attracted much attention.
As so many women judicial officers (both prosecutors and judges) have come to the public's attention all at once, many citizens can't help feeling surprised. Why, without anyone noticing it happening, have lady judges begun to proliferate everywhere?
Women test better
Let's look at the numbers. There are currently 580 prosecutors under the Ministry of Justice, of whom almost 20%, or 112, are women. Among the nearly 1000 judges under the Judicial Yuan and its organizations, there is an even higher proportion of women: females account for 24%. Taking Taoyuan District Court as an example, of the seven new judges who took office this month, five were women.
Looking to the future, "women will make up an ever-increasing proportion of judges," says Tseng You-tien, director of the Office of Judicial Training at the Ministry of Justice. He describes the new legions of lady judges as "going head to head with the men." Compared with the situation 20 years ago, when the ranks of men in the Office of Judicial Training were punctuated by few female faces-even to the point where for a time the entire landscape was monochromatically male-the proportion of women successfully passing the examination to become judges has risen to about 40%.
Why such an increase in females in the judicial system? Tseng You-tien points out that in an era of the rule of law, legal guarantees must be provided for everything from business and marriage to local village affairs. Add to this the fact that many politicians originally began in the legal world and their success has encouraged others to pursue careers in law, and the traditionally cold and boring university law department has turned a new and exciting face to the world in recent years, becoming an attractive goal for a certain group. The current system of examinations for judgeships also emphasizes the written examination. Putting the high cutoff scores for the demanding college and professional examinations together, women who are "good students" clearly have the advantage, while their male counterparts face the danger of "forgetting everything they ever knew about law" during their two years of military service.
"In the future, we will probably need a quota system for male judges!" one judge remarks jokingly-but with a trace of seriousness.
In Taiwan today, college graduates who pass the judges' examination must take 18 months of training, including a six-month period of practical training, which presents subjects not covered in college, such as topics in forensics in preparation for dealing with corpses, auditing techniques for handing economic crimes, and the like. Following this training, new judges take a 10-month "judge internship", and are sent out to various local courts and prosecutors' offices to do an apprenticeship. Finally, based on their grades, they are posted to various assignments.
At the time of posting, because prosecutors handle only criminal cases, and courts must hand down judgments in civil cases as well, a double load is waiting. For this reason, the new judges are grouped into threes based on their grades. In principle, the two with the higher grades will become judges, and the third will act as prosecutor.
However, although all these women pass the same examination and are trained together, they meet different fates, depending on whether they are posted as judge or prosecutor.
New prosecutors burst into tears?
"The women all prefer judgeships, and don't want to be posted as prosecutors," Tseng You-tien observes. For women who are holding down a job and running a household, the more stable work involved with a judgeship is attractive. Apart from the two regular court days every week, the rest of the time on the job is mostly spent in the office, reading or writing opinions. Although she might often leave the office with a large sheaf of paperwork to be wrestled with until the small hours of the morning, still, the job's hours are fairly regular.
On the other hand, the prosecutors of Taiwan are the front-line investigators, charged with the "legal right to investigate." Under the broad scope of their powers, they may put wiretaps on suspects, order searches, make arrests, and detain individuals. Once in place as a prosecutor, the job description also implies leading the police (from the police department of the Ministry of the Interior's National Police Administration) and those involved in the investigation (Ministry of Justice Bureau of Investigation personnel) providing real front-line direction in handling the case and going after the bad guys.
"Women are afraid of dealing with the police, or fear contact with unsavory individuals from all walks of life who are on the fringes of crime. They are afraid to go out in the middle of the night to look at corpses, and even more scared of checking out murder scenes," said Tsai Pi-yu, a dulcet-toned, attractive woman with more than a decade of experience in handling such cases. She says that many women "burst into tears" on the spot when told they are being assigned as a prosecutor-just as she did when she received the same news.
Scared or not, Tsai remembers rather proudly the first time she went out alone to investigate a crime scene. The case was a suspected murder involving a burned car which had been discovered on a suburban road in an industrial area. The driver was burned black, dead in the driver's seat. The stiffened corpse had already begun to decompose, making it extremely difficult to remove. With these problems, and given the importance of preserving evidence at the crime scene, the police didn't touch anything, simply waiting until the prosecutor showed up at the scene.
Every wound shouts an accusation
"Detectives who were at the scene told me after the fact that when they saw this tiny woman get out of the car, they were dumbfounded," recalls Tsai. To avoid scaring the female prosecutor, the team leader in this case deliberately walked over and told her that she didn't have to come and look-she should just wait for the coroner and the police to 'handle it' and report to her later.
Maybe it was a show of strength, or a sense of responsibility, but Tsai refused the team leader's suggestion. "I knew that if I backed out of that one, in the future I wouldn't be able to take a leadership role with the criminal police and direct cases. My professional image and reputation would have been sacrificed." She steeled herself against the carnage and stench, and watched the medical examiner do his work, consulting with him and taking copious notes, all without turning a hair.
"When you get right down to it, when looking at a corpse, you can only think, 'How did the person get into this condition? How did this happen?' You don't think about whether you yourself are uncomfortable," she says.
Tsai believes firmly that "victims are mute-only the prosecutor can speak for them," and that a thorough inspection of the crime scene (careful observation of wounds, footprints at the scene, burn marks, and so forth) combined with forensic evidence (lifting fingerprints, hair and fiber work, collection of bodily fluids, suspicious objects and so on) is the key to breaking a case. If the prosecutor is sloppy on the first visit to the scene, she will regret it later.
After this first tearing down of psychological barriers, Tsai has yet to be rattled by any case. When examining corpses, many male prosecutors are in the habit of bringing incantations, the Diamond Sutra, or moxa herb to ward off evil, but Tsai has never done so. In her role as a mentor at the training program, Tsai has encouraged young women not to fear the prosecutor's job, based on her own first-hand experience.
"Actually, many difficulties-the perception that women are timid, weak, or not good at deduction, or know too little about the criminal world-are all just stereotypes piled on top of our scaring ourselves. As soon as you get out and do the work, you will find that it's not so difficult," says Tsai Ming-hua, a former representative to the National Assembly who has started work as an attorney after a decade of service in the judicial world. She points out that a person's potential is limitless; the question is whether or not you have the will to do a good job.
However, the young women judges still look "delicate" next to the men who have done two years' military service. With insufficient experience in society, they sometimes do not know how to react in the field.
The innocents vs. the street-wise
As Taoyuan District Court President Chen Hsiu-mei looks back on her extensive experiences in the judicial system, she remembers a case when she first started out, over 20 years ago. The case being tried involved gambling charges, and during questioning the defendant said, "Miss, we couldn't play that day, because there weren't enough tiles. Chen, who didn't have the first idea of what a tianjiu tile looked like, or how many were needed to play, could only let the matter drop.
On another occasion, the police reported that they had busted a "huge gambling den." The accused said suavely, "We were betting under NT$100. There was no question of winnings or losses." As soon as Chen heard the size of the amounts in question, she let the man go; afterward, she found out that there was a very complicated system used to calculate these amounts, adding this to that, and in one evening a person could lose tens of thousands of dollars. "It's lucky you're new, so the presiding judge won't think that you were bribed!" a colleague teased her later.
Prosecutors also come up against these problems when they conduct hearings. However, these proceedings are not open, and after the door is closed, at times questioning gets easier. A prosecutor surnamed Lin, who works for the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office, gives an example.
"Because the male defendants always think it's easy to put one over on the female prosecutors, and that we don't understand anything, they're always saying over and over again, 'Do you know. . . ?' I take the chance to act stupid, and say, 'I don't quite understand, please explain a little more, okay?'" she laughs. On some occasions male suspects will let their guard down and spill the beans, and she can hear things that others could not.
In actuality, it's difficult for those who have been well-behaved, good students all their lives-a necessity to pass the exam to become a judge-to have enough experience in the outside world and to know the many kinds of deviant characters who people it, and this can be a major problem for them in solving cases. However, Chen Hsiu-mei feels that this is neither an insurmountable nor a gender-linked problem. Among the young male judges, there are also many who are "super-straight arrows" who have never smoked or used alcohol, never gone whoring or gambled.
"If you are only willing to keep your eyes open, ask a lot of questions, and think a lot, you will accumulate experience case by case, and will be able to make up for your lack of experience in the real world," says Chen. The judicial training center has lately increased the training it provides to prepare the judges in these areas, for example, taking the students abroad and having them tour legal gambling establishments (all gambling is illegal in Taiwan) and sex operations. In order to competently handle the traffic accidents which are more and more prevalent, the students must all learn to drive; in order to combat the new styles of economic crimes, the aspiring judges must also make visits to securities exchanges.
Life-and-death decisions
For Chen Hsiu-mei, the real test is still the question of how to rule in capital cases. After the Liu Pang-you murder, Chen, whose office is in the same building as Chu Fu-mei's, waited patiently for the investigators to bring charges and move the case into the court. She says frankly that the thing a judge fears most is breaking a big case "in an ugly way," when the physical evidence at the scene has been destroyed in rescuing the survivors, making it impossible to take samples which could be submitted for scientific analysis (for example, DNA matching for bloodstains). In such cases, there are only the court witnesses and the eyewitnesses' indirect evidence, which are much less persuasive.
In such a case, "both sides are in the courtroom. If you believe this guy, you will have to sentence the defendant to death. But if you believe the other fellow, the defendant will walk. There's almost never a third choice."
Particularly in capital cases, pressure to conclude the case quickly comes from all sides. At the same time, however, the law makes particularly high demands on evidence. When the choice is between the death penalty and an innocent verdict, the judge turns the case over and over in her mind. This is the judicial hotseat.
While judges get their gray hairs from such decisions, for female prosecutors, the test is leading the mostly male police teams. Recently two major cases have gotten bogged down, and no matter how many criminal cases are ultimately unsolvable, the question of "can women really handle the big cases?" always comes up. Some members of the public who are biased regarding the roles that women may play invariably harbor such reservations in their minds.
"In terms of leadership style, prosecutors can choose to be out on the front lines, or we can direct things from the office," says a female prosecutor, who likes to think of what novelist Agatha Christie had to say on the subject: our power is in our minds, not our feet!
Tsai Pi-yu also feels that the contribution female prosecutors make to a case in doing analytical and planning work is in no way inferior to the work done by front-line investigators; the prosecutors, the police and the investigators all have their part to play. In her experience, if the case involves economic fraud or other intellectual crimes, the police, more accustomed to questions of keeping public order, are less effective, and she often personally leads the investigators in going to the suspected companies to search out and seize financial records.
Among the famous and much-feared Northern Mobile Unit of the Investigation Bureau, which investigates corruption, economic crimes, gangs or drug-related cases, a number of members discuss the differences between female and male prosecutors. They say that generally speaking, they don't assign women to cases involving guns or drugs, but for economic crimes, there is no gender preference. In Hsu A-kui's case, for example, the hard style she adopts has led all the male prosecutors to candidly admit defeat.
Risks and dangers
"In the minds of investigators, prosecutors fall into two groups: there are the 'hawks,' who actively administer and take a dominant role, and the 'doves,' who take a more passive role. There are no distinctions based solely on gender," says an investigator with the Northern Mobile Unit. By these standards, there are many female prosecutors who fit under the "hawk" banner, taking a very tough approach.
In the course of leading an investigation, a prosecutor, regardless of his or her gender, must often take responsibility for issuing warrants, signing detention orders and authorizing wiretaps. In the actual course of things, most never actually go to the scene. For example, in going after a marine smuggling operation, police act on a tip, and it might be the middle of the night when they head out to the coast. With hundreds of cases on their hands, it is neither possible nor necessary for prosecutors to involve themselves in such sit-and-wait operations. Furthermore, many field investigations ultimately turn up nothing.
Because work in the field often involves encounters with fast-changing, hard to handle situations, the prosecutors know enough not to walk on the real front lines, in order to avoid risk. This is particularly true in terms of physical stamina, where the lady prosecutors lag behind their male counterparts. If female prosecutors go out into the field, police investigators will have to worry about their safety. A female prosecutor in the Changhua District Prosecutor's Office says that she has been handling cases for over two years now, and on only one occasion has she been motivated by doubts of the police work to personally take part in a gambling den crackdown.
"We don't have 'prosecutor' tattooed on our foreheads, and with the largely male group of policemen and criminals at the scene, what if I were to become the target of kidnapping? Wouldn't that be a bigger problem?" she frankly remarks. Even criminals tend to give a wide berth to a male cop in uniform, toting a service revolver, but the female prosecutors have no such protection.
Perhaps it is because of these natural limitations that the police, who are often placed on the front lines of the fight against crime, are not really "used to" female prosecutors running cases.
"They're indecisive, cautious and inflexible," says an officer with the Taipei city criminal police department. "Women just can't measure up in terms of aggressiveness and initiative."
Changing casework styles
This same police officer comments that because the female prosecutors are less likely to be working with the police in the field, they are not as informed of the actual situation, and at times they lack confidence in the police work. The lady prosecutors have to keep their own families' home fires burning, and it isn't always convenient for them to hold meetings at odd hours, or to trade views on a case over a meal. Add to this the "buddy-buddy" attitude that the male investigators have among themselves, and the ladies sometimes find their hands tied in handling cases.
When working on criminal cases, police must be very flexible, unlike an investigator who plans thoroughly and checks out all the evidence before making a move. As a result, it's difficult for female prosecutors to feel the police are trustworthy when they put in requests for searches, detentions and the like. The female prosecutors tend to be a bit more cautious in these matters, paying careful attention to legal and procedural demands. Although this is only proper in respecting human rights, still the police often feel frustrated as a result.
The police officer comments that not long ago he applied for a wiretap, and had to do everything but tap dance to get the permit out of the female prosecutor on the case. The prosecutor also requested that the officer supply complete transcripts and reports based on the tap.
"People can talk for a long time in just one phone call, but the part that concerns the case might only cover two or three sentences. To get those few sentences, we have to transcribe the whole conversation word for word. What a pain!" The officer can't help but add, "I wish those lady prosecutors would get out of the office a little more, and figure out what we're doing out here!"
To which prosecutor Lin, whose own methods are as straightforward as a man's, replies: "Please accept the reality that there are women prosecutors running cases. And get used to our style in doing it, too!"
She explains, based on her own experience, that if work on a case continues to the noon hour, it's natural to continue discussions over lunch if there are matters to talk over. But she emphasizes: "It's my treat, so that you won't get the wrong idea or think I'm freeloading!" She will even give the money in advance to the stenographer who goes with her. As for evenings, she invariably answers, "Sorry, I can't eat dinner out."
As an unmarried woman, Lin feels that she has no need to apologize. "If a married female prosecutor goes out socially like that, people say that she is letting her family down and is irresponsible. If a single woman does it, she hears all kinds of strange assessments of her behavior."
Lin feels that this is the unfair result of women's Catch-22 position in society. At any rate, Lin believes that buddying around with the police, having a broad set of personal connections, and being familiar with a lot of bizarre criminal tactics aren't really directly relevant to whether or not a person can direct a case. Based on solution rate and ability to recognize evidence, male and female prosecutors are more or less indistinguishable.
More professional, gender neutral
Of course, men and women are different. Just as cases involving guns or narcotics are commonly assigned to male prosecutors, currently many cases of "undermining public morality," such as adultery, rape, prostitution, and violent sexual offenses, have been assigned to women. In this way, female victims aren't intimidated by a male prosecutor, or embarrassed to describe what happened in detail. It also prevents female victims from unintentionally being hurt more. In principle, these cases are handled from start to finish by female prosecutors, who can use their own style most beneficially.
For a woman, this kind of case is still a dark trial. Judge Chen Hsiu-mei remembers a divorce case early in her career, in which the wife tearfully told the court how wronged she felt. As she spoke, the husband surprised Chen by suddenly yelling to the wife, "Don't think that the judge is going to sympathize with you just because she's a woman!" After this event, Chen continually reminded herself not to allow questions of sex or emotion to enter into the legal process.
Female judicial officials try to be gender-neutral in handling cases, but society's stereotypical views of them, overt and covert, are still a source of pressure. Recently, Chu Fu-mei's clothes and makeup became a playful topic of conversation on a satellite TV station's satirical news review. A certain official's use of very strong language with Huang Jui-hua was another case in point. Many female judges mention these cases, trying hard to keep a smile on their faces even though it's impossible for them to avoid being annoyed by the words.
"The only way to break through all of this is for us to take a more professional attitude in handling cases," says Lin. No hesitation, no weakness, no traditionally female reactions; this is Lin's own guiding principle.
However, legislator Hsieh Chi-ta admits that when she sees the dauntless courage and spirit of some men in politics and the law in standing up against the forces of evil and fighting the ever-rising tide of large-scale organized crime, she sometimes feels that she is not their equal. "Women do after all have a more limited perspective on things," says Hsieh, who is known for her "Mommy Judge" image, and who during the recent disturbance at the Hsinchu Juvenile Detention Center intervened to placate the inmates, and was sharply critical of the center management. The problems we must confront, however, cannot be conquered through legal reform only; it will take joint efforts from society and the educational system to solve it.
Moral discretion builds reputations
Women have their weak points, but on the other hand, no one can deny that "women judges have a better record on morals and discretion." With the implication of some unethical legal professionals in the recent arcade fraud and engineering fraud cases, it is noteworthy that the list of names has not included a single woman.
A male prosecutor observes that corruption often arises from those occasions when one is eating or socializing with others, and since the women judges often skip the after-hours activities, they effectively eliminate most of the opportunity. Supreme Court judge Chang Jen-shu says that women and men derive satisfaction from different things: "Women tend to be satisfied by doing a job well. They aren't striving for fame and fortune."
Wang Hua-fu, who leads the Northern Mobile Unit in fighting crime, says that judges must "keep to the straight and narrow." The more complex relationships are, the more chance there is that there will be an inescapable obligation during a trial. He says with emphasis that whether a judge can maintain discretion and fairness and administer justly is more important and has more effect than the most outstanding ability to run cases.
Women have already made inroads to the highest levels of legal work, and have gotten the recognition and approbation they deserve. But when the robes come off, how do they balance the demands of a job and a household? This has always been the key problem for female judges and prosecutors.
In the most turbulent period of the Hua-lung case, Hsu A-kui delivered a lunchbox to her child, and the story was blown into headlines by the media. A female judge describes her life after work in this way: "I take the bus home, I buy groceries, I cook, I make sure my children are doing their homework-I'm just like any other housewife." The only difference is that after the kids are in bed, she must grapple with a huge stack of paperwork, on into the wee hours of the morning.
"The workload for judicial personnel is really too heavy." Each individual can have over 100 unfinished cases at a time, and for civil courts, that figure can shoot up to 200-plus. With this kind of overtime each night, and the continual pressure to complete indictments and decisions, "crazy and out-of-control" are the words used by many judges to describe the job's workload. Many male prosecutors and judges find themselves unable to cope and throw in the towel; it's an even heavier burden for a women judge, who must "burn the candle at both ends" juggling both career and family.
More and more women are entering the ranks of prosecutors and judges daily. It's just possible that the formerly all-male judicial world could use a bit of overhaul and adjustment to get in step with the times. Regardless, however, while we're taking a hard look at the performance of these women, let's not forget to give them a vote of encouragement and help along the way.
p.30
Chu Fu-mei, charged with the prosecution of the Liu Pang-you case, maintains a serious expression and talks with confidence and composure to a crowd of media reporters. (photo by Chao Kuang-hua.)
p.32
A district court bulletin board lists judgements in all kinds of cases. People of all persuasions, right and wrong, straight and crooked, all are here, and the lady judges have considerable authority over them.
(facing page) In court, representing the authority of the state, a proper and serious expression is vital; however, after the robes come off, these female judges are warm and soft-spoken-just like any other woman.
p.34
In murder cases and serious traffic accidents, investigation of the scene can't be delayed. In the middle of the night, female prosecutors must leap up at the first ring of the telephone. Standing on the right side in her skirt, observing the medical examiner, is prosecutor Chen Mei-yan, who is handling the Peng Wan-ju murder case. (photo by Wang Ta-ko)
p.36
Taoyuan District Court President Chen Hsiu-mei, who entered the field reluctantly 30 years ago via a college degree in law, feels that in retrospect, it's all been worth it.
(facing page) Students from a junior-year civics class at Taipei First Girls' High School come to the court on a field trip. Teacher Kin reports, however, that the girls are most interested in seeing where civil marriages are performed.
p.38
In December of each year, adjustments are made in judicial postings and new judicial personnel take office. Here, Minister of Justice Liao Cheng-hao officiates at a judicial training center graduation ceremony. The student representing the class just happens to be a woman.
In murder cases and serious traffic accidents, investigation of the scene can't be delayed. In the middle of the night, female prosecutors must leap up at the first ring of the telephone. Standing on the right side in her skirt, observing the medical examiner, is prosecutor Chen Mei-yan, who is handling the Peng Wan-ju murder case. （photo by Wang Ta-ko）
Taoyuan District Court President Chen Hsiu-mei, who entered the field reluctantly 30 years ago via a college degree in law, feels that in retrospect, it's all been worth it.
（facing page） Students from a junior-year civics class at Taipei First Girls' High School come to the court on a field trip. Teacher Kin reports, however, that the girls are most interested in seeing where civil marriages are performed.
In December of each year, adjustments are made in judicial postings and new judicial personnel take office. Here, Minister of Justice Liao Cheng-hao officiates at a judicial training center graduation ceremony. The student representing the class just happens to be a woman.
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