Empowerment and capacity of external police oversight: The paradox of the Control Yuan in Taiwan

Abstract

Prevailing scholarly literature generally suggested the significance of an externally empowered oversight agency to ensure the public accountability of the police. As an electoral democratic regime, Taiwan’s model of police oversight is characterized by the parallel existence of both internal and external investigative bodies. The Control Yuan is a constitutionally empowered ‘super ombudsman’ to monitor the integrity management of civil servants including the police. This thematic research studies the reflection of ‘insiders’—the Control Yuan members who have taken part in police misconduct hearings, on this mechanism that is uncommon in western democracies. Paradoxically, the respondents generally questioned the effectiveness of this powerful establishment with both abundant human resources and legal authorization. The technical competence among investigators and party politics in agenda setting are also perceived as structural limitations of the current mechanism.