論我國地方法院判決數量與品質間之關係

Do more verdicts lead to higher reversal rate in Taiwan's district court?

蔡劭偉(Shao-Wei Tsai)

指導教授 ： 林明仁

共同指導教授 ： 樊家忠(Elliott Fan)

國立臺灣大學/社會科學院/經濟學研究所/碩士(2022年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU202200140

摘要

本論文研究判決數量與品質之間的關係。申言之，依照司法院所頒布的「各級法院辦案期限實施要點」，法院內部每個月會統計各個法官有多少案件沒有完結，而每個月報表的統計時間都是截至該月月底，因此在月底可以發現法官們會產出大量的判決。本論文想要探討之問題為：月底產出大量的判決是否會影響判決品質？判斷品質好壞的方式分別為當事人是否上訴至高等法院及上訴至高等法院後是否被高等法院撤銷？本論文使用了西元2011--2020年間的地方法院及高等法院刑事判決作為樣本，使用了多變數迴歸、工具變數迴歸、邏輯迴歸模型以及機率值模型的結果，並未發現在月底所產出的判決比較容易被上訴至高等法院或是被高等法院所撤銷。對於此一結果，本文認為：法官們在面對月底報表表現時，會選擇處理案情較為簡單明確之案件，因而當事人也比較不容易上訴至高等法院，縱使判決被上訴至高等法院，地方法院的法官們也相信這些案件之判決會有較高的機率被維持。此外，本文亦發現在控制相關變數以及地方法院審理時間後，地方法院的法官對於月底判決的案件會給予較低的刑期。

關鍵字

法官行為 ； 量刑 ； 法實證研究 ； 行為經濟學 ； 工具變數 ； 邏輯迴歸模型 ； 機率值模型

並列摘要

According to the regulation published by Judicial Yuan, courts should sum up cases that have not been terminated by each judge monthly. The number reported on monthly report are summed up until the end of last month. As a result, we find out that there are more verdicts delivered by district court judges at the end of every month in Taiwan. This thesis tries to figure out whether there exists the trade-off between the quantity and the quality of the verdicts among judges in Taiwan's district courts, and uses reversal rate and appeal rate as measures of quality of the verdicts. We use criminal verdicts in Taiwan's district courts and appellant courts in 2011--2020 as sample, and conduct ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares, and nonlinear regression as empirical methods. The research finding shows that the higher number of cases does not lead to higher appeal rate or reversal rate, which suggests that judges tend to deal with easier cases which judges believe that neither parties would appeal at the end of the month. Even if parties appeal, judges are confident that appellant court would dismiss the cases. Also, we find out that judges tend to give shorter sentences to defendant of cases terminated at the end of month after controlling the length of trial and other variables.

並列關鍵字

Judicial Behaviour ； Sentencing ； Empirical Legal Study ； Behaviour Economics ； Instrumental Variables ； Logistics Regression Model ； Probit Model

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