從教育程度到法官信任：司法認知程度的中介效果與使用語言的調節效果

Abstract

進入二十一世紀後，隨著民主化的鞏固與媒體生態的開放，民眾對司法的批判焦點從「政治干預」轉向了「專業傲慢」和「與社會脫節」，「恐龍法官」這一負面標籤廣泛流行。然而，當民眾無法再透過信任來化約對未來的恐懼時，司法體系便面臨正當性的崩塌。為了解「部分參與國民法官審判之民眾對於司法信任的提升」是否能代表整體社會的信任轉向，教育程度、法律知識與語言習慣的差異是否會對法官信任產生不同的影響，本研究提出了由教育程度到司法認知程度，進而影響法官信任的假設，並推論使用語言對於司法認知程度到法官信任之關聯的調節效果。使用司法院「112年一般民眾對司法認知調查」中之4858份樣本進行分析，研究結果支持了司法認知程度作為教育程度到法官信任的中介機制，亦發現使用語言存在與研究假設相異的調節效果，且另外針對年齡的部分進行額外分析。最後，本研究對結果進行討論，並說明研究貢獻與研究限制，提出實務建議及未來研究方向。

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the consolidation of democracy and the liberalization of the media environment, public criticism of the judiciary in Taiwan has shifted from concerns over political interference to accusations of professional arrogance and disconnection from society. The widespread use of the derogatory label “dinosaur judges” has become a symbolic manifestation of this transformation. When citizens can no longer rely on trust to reduce uncertainty about the future, the judiciary faces a crisis of legitimacy. To examine whether the increased judicial trust observed among citizens who participate in lay judge trials can be generalized to society as a whole, and to explore whether differences in educational attainment, legal knowledge, and language use exert distinct effects on trust in judges, this study proposes a theoretical model in which education influences trust in judges through judicial cognition, while language use moderates the relationship between judicial cognition and trust in judges. Using 4,858 observations from the Judicial Yuan’s The General Public Survey on Judicial Cognition of 2023, the empirical results support judicial cognition as a mediating mechanism between education level and trust in judges. The findings further reveal a moderating effect of language use that diverges from the original research hypothesis. Additional analyses are also conducted with respect to age differences. Finally, this study discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the findings, outlines its research limitations, and proposes directions for future research.