政府效能、公平審判與保密義務：檢察官之言論自由與限制

Government Efficiency, Fair Trial, and Duty of Confidentiality: Free Speech Rights of Prosecutors and the Limitations

國內關於檢察官言論自由與限制的討論，絕大多數聚焦在偵查不公開的面向上，但這樣的討論有其內在的限制，例如限於刑事偵查程序與應保密事項，而對於檢察官在其他程序的發言或是關於其他非機密類型的言論則未有論及。本文從政府效能、公平審判與保密義務的規範目的出發，由美國法制的觀點來探討如何取得檢察官的言論自由與限制間取得平衡點，並作為我國建構相關法制的借鑒。在政府效能部分，可使用權衡模式對言論自由與施政效率進行衡量，倘言論內容與職務無關，且受公眾關注程度越高，政府限制該言論的正當性就越低；當檢察官揭露內部弊端時，該言論縱為職務上言論，政府亦不得恣意限制之。另外，為避免被告受公平審判的權利受到不當侵害，建議可在檢察官倫理規範中加入對法庭外陳述的限制，並允許檢察官為維護審判公平而發表平衡回應；現行針對偵查不公開所制定的相關新聞發布規範，或可考慮擴張其適用範圍，藉以維護不同訴訟程序的審判公平性。在保密義務方面，除了固有的偵查不公開原則外，檢察官在處理非刑事案件時，可考慮援用律師與當事人的秘匿特權，令檢察官就此類案件資料負有保密義務；倘檢察官欲在案件結束後出版相關辦案經歷時，須先獲得所屬檢察署長官的同意，檢察長須就保密必要、案件歷史價值、人民監督施政、促進大眾理解司法系統等公眾利益，對同意出版與否為全面性的考量。

Traditional studies on the free speech rights of prosecutors are mainly emphasized on the secrecy of investigation, yet this approach has the inherent restrictions such as its focal points are inseparable from criminal investigation and confidential items and thus has nothing to do with prosecutors’ statements in other proceedings or their non-confidential statements. This article starts out by setting forth the three leading principles regarding the management of prosecutors’ free speech rights: government efficiency, fair trial, and duty of confidentiality and attempts to strike a balance between the do’s and don’ts of prosecutors’ freedom of speech in terms of American jurisprudence. As to government efficiency, a balancing test can be exerted to examine if the speech is made as a citizen on public concern issues; the more public concerned the issues of a citizen statement are, the lower the legitimacy of government control of the statement is. For a statement on whistleblowing, the government has little legitimacy to prohibit it even if it is made in prosecutors’ duties. With respect to fair trial, this article suggests to add a restriction on prosecutors’ extrajudicial statements which will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding, to allow prosecutors to make a fair response to maintain the fair trial requirement, and to expand the scope of current laws and regulations about the secrecy of investigation to other adjudicative proceedings so as to keep a fair environment in other kinds of cases. For the duty of confidentiality, in addition to the non-disclosure requirement during investigation process, it is recommended to invoke the attorney-client privilege to impose a duty of confidentiality on prosecutors when they are dealing with non-criminal cases. If a prosecutor plans to publish the work experience afterwards, it is needed to secure an approval from the chief attorney; a chief attorney shall take into consideration the necessity of secrecy, its historical values, and the public’s right to know and monitor the operation of criminal justice when contemplating on whether to grant an approval.