Taiwan still has a long way to go to realize gender equality, and the nation needs to work on gender mainstreaming in the judiciary, improve workplace equality and ensure social justice is realized through the judicial system, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.

“A recent case at the Court of the Judiciary has sparked widespread discussion in the nation. As the president, I should not and will not comment on the case, but the controversies surrounding it made me very aware that Taiwan still has a long way to go in realizing gender equality,” Tsai said on Facebook yesterday afternoon.

Tsai identified three areas of improvement for the nation.

First, society should be more sympathetic to working women, she said.

“As a woman, I understand that gender-based pressure could happen at home, schools and workplaces in any sector. In workplaces, due to gender and power imbalance, the disadvantaged parties rarely receive sufficient support and are often subject to victim shaming,” she said. “People must be more sympathetic toward victims of gender inequality and try to understand them better.”

Second, judicial rulings must reflect principles of social justice, she said.

“The judicial system exists to uphold social justice. When a small number of judges hand out rulings that disappoint the public, people lose their trust in the judiciary,” she said, adding that her government would continue to work to reform the judiciary to restore the public’s trust in the system.

Third, the judiciary must work on gender mainstreaming, she said.

The Judicial Yuan has been planning on reforming the Court of the Judiciary and will improve gender equality education for judges and judicial officials, she added.

Although Tsai did not name names, she appeared to be referring to the second and final ruling handed down on Thursday last week on a sexual harassment case involving former Taipei High Administrative Court judge Chen Hung-pin (陳鴻斌).

The Court of the Judiciary, which handles disciplinary cases involving judges, ruled in October 2016 that Chen had sexually harassed his assistant and should be dismissed. It was the first time a Taiwanese court ordered a judge’s dismissal due to sexual harassment.

He appealed the verdict, and the court, in its second ruling delivered on International Women’s Day, decided that Chen only needed to pay a fine equal to one year’s salary on the grounds that he had shown remorse and that the court had found only three incidents of harassment.

[Taipei Times, 2018-03-16]