無害違誤審查原則

Harmless Error Doctrine

無害違誤(harmless error)一詞於民國九十七年間，曾為我國最高法院（九十七年度台上字第二○四九號判決）所使用；惟當時尚未成為「原則(Doctrine)」。迄一百年，「無害違誤審查原則」經最高法院確立，並為數判決引用。但其構造及適用類型為何，仍待解明。對照美國實務，聯邦最高法院自一九四六年起即確立「無害錯誤法則」，並發展數種判斷基準；此等基準至今雖仍被質疑無說服力，但其數十年間的發展脈絡及適用類型殊值觀察。當然，我國「無害違誤審查原則」不必與美國「無害錯誤法則」有完全相同的發展結果及內容；我國最高法院自有精緻的理論及見解。然「他山之石可以攻玉」，故本文勉力整理，以供參考。另外，「無害違誤審查原則」目前被界定為「上訴第三審」的審查原則，但有延伸適用的趨勢。乃併同介紹。

The term, “harmless error”, has been utilized by the Supreme Court judgment of case(97)-Tai-Shang-No.2049 in 2008, but it didn’t become a doctrine until 2011. However, the structure and application of this doctrine are still opaque. The Supreme Court of the United States, on the other hand, established this “Harmless Error Doctrine” in 1946 and has developed several judgment standards afterwards. Although there are still doubts over these standards, their long developing histories and application scopes are worth observation. The development and content of our harmless error doctrine doesn’t have to correspond with USA’s due to the sophisticated theories from our Supreme Court, nonetheless, we can still take it as reference. Moreover, even though the harmless error doctrine is limited to the Third Instance, there is a tendency of further application.