2026/04/11 08:49 Reporter Yang Xinhui/Taipei Report
Domestic violence tragedies are rampant. The Legislative Yuan has proposed amending Article 31 of the Domestic Violence Prevention Act to add a provision allowing electronic monitoring of those who violate protection orders. However, current amendments focus more on “back-end” handling. In the past, there have been frequent cases where victims were severely beaten by abusers before protection orders were issued. Legal experts believe that Articles 14 or 16 should be amended to incorporate monitoring mechanisms at the time of issuance of protection orders to truly achieve preventative effects.
In July of last year, a horrific case occurred in Tucheng District, New Taipei City, where a man surnamed Xie, violating a protection order, brutally murdered his wife, surnamed Zhang, and her sister-in-law in the street. That same month, in Xinyi District, Taipei City, a suspect surnamed Liu attacked a female hostess surnamed Gu with a knife due to a relationship dispute. Gu had applied for a protection order two months prior to the incident, but tragically, she was murdered the very night the order was issued.
However, similar cases are not limited to “violation of protection orders.” In fact, it is common for victims to be attacked before the protection order has even been issued. In August of last year, in Nangang District, Taipei City, a blond man brutally assaulted his wife with a helmet. The woman had filed a police report and applied for a protection order a week prior, but was attacked again before the order was issued.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Justice, from 2020 to 2023, the average time required for a court to terminate a civil protection order is 1.08 days for an emergency protection order, 23.36 days for a temporary protection order, and 52.08 days for a regular protection order, indicating a significant “fatal window period” for protection orders.
Against this backdrop, the relevant ministries’ legislative amendments still focus on electronic monitoring measures “after a protection order is violated,” meaning that electronic monitoring will be used as an alternative measure when prosecutors or judges determine that detention is unnecessary.
The legal community generally believes that the current legislative direction is overly focused on “back-end” processing mechanisms, primarily targeting monitoring measures during the suspension of detention or alternative measures phase in criminal proceedings. The design purpose of such electronic monitoring is to prevent defendants from fleeing, which is fundamentally different from the need for “immediate protection of victims” in domestic violence cases, and may be insufficient to effectively address practical risks.
A senior judge pointed out that current electronic monitoring is handled by escape-prevention-oriented technology monitoring centers, and the related manpower and equipment are already nearing saturation. Including a large number of domestic violence cases could affect overall operational efficiency. In contrast, domestic violence prevention should return to “front-end prevention,” suggesting that electronic monitoring be simultaneously implemented during the issuance of protection orders under Articles 14 and 16, and executed by police agencies with nationwide networks and real-time response capabilities, providing more immediate and comprehensive protection for victims.
Wang Po-Chi, Associate Professor of the Department of Criminal Justice and Graduate Institute at Ming Chuan University, stated in an interview that the time difference between application and issuance of a protection order is what society calls the “judicial window period,” and both the monitoring mechanisms before and after issuance need to be reviewed. Furthermore, Article 31 could be supplemented with more additional conditions to strengthen control over high-risk perpetrators, such as those with a history of violence, stalking or harassment, mental illness, being in divorce proceedings, or emotional instability; all of these should be included in the assessment.