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The Background Investigator Goes To Taiwan
In a continuing series, The Background Investigator, is sending its researchers to various countries around the world to explore the justice systems and bring back to you their findings. This month Steven Brownstein visited Taipei, Taiwan. Here is his report:
Understanding Taipei
I arrived in Taipei with list of searches from Straightline International. My goal was to obtain a court search result from the Taipei District Court.
First a little background about district courts in Taiwan:
District Courts have jurisdiction over ordinary or summary civil and criminal cases as well as civil small claim cases as courts of the first instance.
So I knew this was the right court.
There are two enclosed areas on the first floor of the District Court that have counters to serve the public.
The one furthest from the main entrance is the civil division. individuals have access to this area to file claims, make payments, and access other services needed for civil work.
The area closest to the door is a registrar of sorts. Their task is basically filing and receiving motions and documents for current cases, as well as recording all new cases into the court's database.
It is in this area that record checks can be completed.
English is a far cry from being a 'second language' at this court. It would pay to have an interpretor present to expedite matters.
Name checks are difficult to perform from several standpoints. First, the commonality of names makes the task daunting; there are numerous name matches. but secondly, because there is a much simpler awy.
Records are matched to an individual by their unique tawianese ID number (10 digits - one letter followed by 9 numbers).
It is with this indentifier that all records of any cases can be brought up.
The clerks in this office were happy to help me and I ran the names without incident.
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