Part II ＞ Our Efforts and Transformation and extraordinary appeal and do not recuse themselves; and whether or not Article 2 of the Directions for Implementation of Criminal Appeal Allotment After the Second Reversal of the Supreme Court (1991) and Article 17, paragraph 8 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are in conformity with Articles 7, 16, 23, and 171 of the Constitution. The doubts raised were submitted to interpretation. From international human rights standards, collection of relevant data and comparative analysis, the NHRC presented its opinion in writing to the Taiwan Constitutional Court. The NHRC holds that Article 14, paragraph 1, and General Comment No. 32 of the ICCPR; Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR); Article 8 of the American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José); Articles 7 and 26 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Banjul Charter); Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary; the Universal Charter of the Judge; and the UN Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct stipulate that the judiciary is the guardian of the rule of law aimed at checking and balancing State power. Therefore, in order to realise the ideals of justice and equality, the State needs to ensure that neither laws passed by the legislative branch nor directives passed by the executive deviate from legal standards or international human rights standards. Hence, in order to ensure effective and equal protection of human rights, realise democracy and the rule of law, and seek sustainable development for humankind, it is essential that the judiciary upholds the core values of independence and objectiveness when fulfilling its role. 46 National Human Rights Commission 2022 Annual Report The NHRC holds that when judges engage in the ordinary criminal proceedings and judgment of a specific case and then fail to recuse themselves from the extraordinary appeal of the same case, they may betray the principle of impartiality. Similarly, when judges engage in the criminal proceedings and judgment of the second instance of a specific case and then fail to recuse themselves from the retrial of the second instance reversed by the third trial of the same case, they may also violate that same principle. Therefore, whether a judge has already participated in a case’s proceedings should be a criterion for deciding to appoint judges to courts of appeal or to retrials. When, for a specific case, judges engage in the criminal judgment of the third instance at the Supreme Court and then fail to recuse themselves from the proceedings when this same case is sent to the Supreme Court again following a retrial, if it is verified, after overall observation, that the Supreme Court has violated the “principle of legal reservation” or the “principle of the legal judge” during the trial of the case in dispute, these are all considered to be “supreme court allotment rules” that violate the principle of impartiality. The Taiwan Constitutional Court has not ruled on this case.