Small potatoes
That seems like an awful lot of money, but compared to other countries it's still small potatoes. The UK, which began providing legal aid services in 1949, established a Legal Services Commission (LSC) within the Department for Constitutional Affairs in 2000. In a country with a population only 2.6 times that of Taiwan, the LSC has a budget that is 105 times as big (£2 billion, or about NT$126 billion) and handles 80 times as many cases (2.6 million).
So the LAF could certainly do with more funding. But to get it will they have to change their operations to satisfy the ones holding the purse strings? The LAF's parent organization is the Judicial Yuan, which is a branch of the government. What happens when the person receiving LAF aid is being prosecuted by the state for a crime, or is seeking compensation from the government for a state infringement of rights? Is there not the risk that the "parent" will interfere in the LAF's operations?
"There is definitely a difference of perspective between ourselves and the Judicial Yuan in terms of which cases we should be spending our money on," says Kuo Chi-jen. Currently the ratio of civil to criminal cases handled by the LAF is six to four, but the Judicial Yuan would like to see them do more criminal work. This is because if the LAF helps defendants offer a reasonable defense to the charges raised by prosecutors in criminal cases, the legal process will go more smoothly, and this will help the legal system deal with cases more efficiently and reduce the burden on the courts. This is by no means an unreasonable view, and in the future the LAF aims for a 50-50 split between civil and criminal cases.
Besides serving individual citizens, the LAF also takes part in collective actions. When the police forcibly closed the Losheng Sanatorium to make way for a subway station, the LAF helped the residents--all victims of Hansen's disease and separated from the world for half a century--to seek compensation from the government. The LAF was also one of 25 social action organizations that got together on behalf of half a million persons with credit-card debt to lobby the Executive Yuan and Legislative Yuan to pass the Consumer Debt Act. They have also been helping in the case of the workers of the former RCA plant in Taoyuan County, many of whom have died or are seriously ill from cancer or other illnesses resulting from carcinogenic chemicals dumped by the company at the site over a long period. Such work is time-consuming and the outcomes are far from predictable.
In debt to the LAF
"To win justice for the disadvantaged" is the mission of the LAF. But in a democratic society, many different interests struggle for attention, and values are diverse and fractured. What the legal community considers to be "justice" may not always be applauded by society as a whole. The passage of the Consumer Debt Act is a case in point.
Joseph Lin, director of the Taipei branch of the LAF, points out that although last year there were nearly 220,000 cases of successful renegotiation of debt repayment, in 30% of the cases the debtors still defaulted. It's not always the case that debtors are unwilling to repay, but rather that the terms offered by the banks are too stringent. For example, is it realistic to expect someone who earns NT$30,000 per month to repay NT$29,000 against their credit-card debt?
During preliminary consideration of the Consumer Debt Act in the Legislative Yuan in early April of this year, the Financial Supervisory Commission and big banks collectively criticized the bill, claiming that it would allow debtors to avoid repayment.
Lin explains that the provisions of the statute are not intended to mean that debts need not be repaid. They mean that if, under the supervision of the courts, a specified percentage of the debt is repaid within a specified time, then financial institutions may not unleash debt collectors to use whatever means necessary to recover the debt.
Start from the weakest
Explaining the reasoning for the LAF's support of the bill, he draws the following comparison. Imagine that a Good Samaritan helps a person injured in the street to get to the hospital. Now imagine that the same kind-hearted soul finds a person injured at the same intersection two times, three times, 100 times. He or she would surely assume that the intersection's traffic lights and signs are all messed up. He or she would then try to change the rules of the road, otherwise there will be an endless stream of accidents. In the UK and Hong Kong, for example, bankruptcy cases take up more docket space than any other civil matter. Moreover, if society does not give credit-card debtors some breathing room, and a financial mechanism to escape from their problems, then they could be forced into rash action, leading to tragedy for many more families.
Joseph Lin was one of the key players in the Judicial Reform Association, which brought so much non-governmental pressure on the judiciary that they had no choice but to improve. From there he moved on to devoting himself to lobbying for the creation of the LAF. Lin, who approaches reform with the zeal of a revolutionary, has turned over virtually all the work in his law firm to his wife, who is also an attorney, while he spends 12 hours a day, three days a week, on the LAF, all as a volunteer.
Back during the public furor over the kidnapping and murder of the daughter of popular entertainer Pai Ping-ping, after which the kidnappers also went on a rape and murder spree, the brother-in-law of chief suspect Chen Chin-hsing was charged as an accomplice, and had no one willing to defend him. But Lin took the case. Naturally he was widely criticized: Since Chen was so evil, how could his relatives be any different? Why would anyone defend people like that?
"The legal system is filled with overlapping jurisdictions and institutions, and there are all kinds of pitfalls. For poor people, legal recourse is like an apple high up in a tree: You can see it but you can't reach it," says Lin. Chen's wife and brother-in-law were both marginal people in society, with only middle-school education. There was little evidence that they were actually involved in his crimes, but they were demonized in the social atmosphere of that time. If we just leave marginal people to the prejudices of the mainstream, how can we talk about a humane and just society?
People with power and status have plenty of opportunities; you can only really see justice at work, or see the level of good and reason in a society, from the side of the weak. This is what the LAF is all about.