Personal Statement

Growing up, I enjoyed reading social science books. Through the books, I learned the
social preconditions of the law and its effects on society, and aroused my interest in
law. However, I was unsure if I wanted to pursue a career in law. Luckily, I came
across the book The U.S. Constitutional Experience, which allowed me to develop a
passion and a reason to work in the legal industry. I can still remember the thrill after
reading the Gideon v. Wainwright case. Over half a century ago, a prisoner called
Clarence Earl Gideon filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S., invoking
his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The legal system had not been on his side, so
he must secure his basic human needs. In proving Mandeville’s paradox, Gideon
suffered from his criminal history and a biased jury decision. Nevertheless, his writing
to the Supreme Court had rippling effects determining attorney representation as a
human right issue. I thought, “If I were the judge, I would do anything in my power to
protect his defense right rather than issuing an unjust and irresponsible judgment
against him.” Based on that immature thought, my dream of becoming a judge
formed.

Out of awe and respect for law and an unwavering interest in social sciences that
commonly serve as “contexts” for law, I pursued the law as an undergraduate.
Objectively speaking, my four years of legal education did not allow me to remember
more laws or cases, but it did allow me to build a legal mind that I am proud of. For
instance, I conducted an in-depth case study on the Cheng Hsing-Tse case. The Law
of Criminal Procedure professor taught us this case in class. He was a Control Yuan
member who was responsible for investigating this case and provided a sufficient
level of case details to allow us to gain a better understanding of it. Cheng Hsing-tse,
the man wrongfully convicted of murdering a police officer, was condemned to death
in 2002 after being found guilty of shooting a police officer during a gun battle in a
karaoke parlour. The death penalty was confirmed in 2006 when he had exhausted the
appeal process. However, he was granted a retrial after years and released on bail
when the Control Yuan provided new evidence to cast doubt on his conviction,
suggesting that he may have been tortured into admitting the crime. Eventually,
Taiwan High Court overturned the original guilty verdict, stating that Cheng’s
confession may have been forced and that evidence pointed to another culprit firing
the fatal shots, acquitting the death row convict.

This case got me thinking, justice delayed is justice denied. False convictions did
irreparable harm to Cheng Hsing-tse. He was deprived of his freedom for over 5,000
days. In my perspective, no compensation can make up for his loss. Cheng’s case also
reminded me of the Gideon v. Wainwright case. After acquiring systematic legal
training at law school, I better understood this case. As Gideon put it, “Each era finds
an improvement in the law.” In parallel to the Supreme Court recognition in Gideon,
“lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries.” In the course of studying
Cheng’s case, I referred to the U.K. Human Rights Act 1998, which stated that “It is
unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with a
Convention right.” Such mandatory provisions could be applied to deter the
suppression of defendants’ rights in criminal proceedings. I desire to be a judge one
day to implement the principle of presumption of innocence and uphold and protect
the human rights of criminal defendants. To prevent and correct miscarriages of
justice, interpret the law and contribute to developing long-term policies that include
necessary judiciary reforms.

My real-life experience continued to expose me to complex legal situations and

predicaments. As a law intern, with the messiness and complexity of legal doctrines
and rules, trying to come up with a workable solution is intellectually challenging and
rewarding. I examined how various branches of the law were practiced and
contextualised in true-world cases, which tremendously complimented my class-
learned theoretical knowledge. During my internship, a client’s brother, victimised by
unjust persecution and the socio-political purge of criminals regardless of severity,
was sentenced to death for a misdemeanor. After taking the further investigation into
the State Compensation Law and completing exhaustive legal research on all the
similar cases in China for the past decade, I found it was almost impossible to apply
for state compensation for the client. As a result, we did not represent this case. The
case made me more conscious that wrongful convictions can only be remedied with
meticulous and exhaustive prosecutorial and judicial processes. If I could be a judge,
by hearing vivid judicial cases, I would promptly identify the loopholes and
shortcomings of the laws, evaluate the operation of the laws in social life, and thus
provide targeted suggestions for the revision and improvement of the laws.

I look forward to University College London’s LLM programme, specifically in Law

and Social Justice, because the school shares the humanistic grace I have longed for.
The Criminal Law and Human Rights course you offered attracts me the most. It
focuses on how the U.K. Human Rights Act 1998 affects criminal law, which
coincides with what I want to study in protecting the rights of criminal defendants and
achieving justice. With the knowledge I continue to acquire in the rigorous and
supportive environment at University College London, I will further explore how to
strive to achieve a balance between offering offenders’ necessary guidance and
support and lenience that can be wrongly interpreted as indifference or connivance. In
addition, I want to practice and reflect on my philosophy through the UCL Centre for
Access to Justice. Overall, the LLM programme’s curriculum is reasonably
distributed over rigorous theoretical training and practical knowledge in response to
ever-changing social environments. I hope to explore the interdisciplinarity of this
programme and relevant applications of law through interaction with peers of diverse
backgrounds to best embrace law as a unifying and equalising force that transforms
our reality.