Yunlin District Court, March 22, 2016. The third court hearing of Chang et al. (Taisi residents) v. five representative companies of the Sixth Naphtha petrochemical zone.

A panoramic view of the court: the defendants’ lawyers on the left and the plaintiffs’ lawyers on the right. In the first row of the audience were three plaintiffs who accompanied Brother Wu (a leader in organizing the plaintiffs’ group) and documentary filmmaker Hao-chung Chan (author of Shrouding the Clouds, about air pollution from the Sixth Naphtha cracker). The last row was occupied by FPG employees.

2016年3月22日，雲林地方法院第三次開庭。台西鄉以張姓居民原告為首，對六輕石化工業區的五家公司代表提出告訴。

法庭全景，左為被告律師，右為原告律師。旁聽席第一排為三位原告，他們和吳日暉大哥一起來的。吳大哥在籌組原告團的過程中扮演相當重要的角色。另外，《在雲裡》的導演詹皓中也來了，這是一部透過「雲」來探討六輕造成空汙下的雲林之紀錄片。而最後一排坐滿了台塑員工。

Defendant attorney Chen during one of her aggressive criticisms of plaintiffs’ lawyers arguments on the causal link between air pollutants and the plaintiffs’ cancers.

被告陳律師正批評原告律師關於空氣污染物與原告癌症之間的因果關係。

Yunlin District Court, March 22, 2016.

Defendant attorney Tsai feels very much at home in the courtroom, frequently leaving the seat assigned to the defendants to sit in the middle of the courtroom at the desk normally reserved for experts and the plaintiffs, translating to the judge in “plain Chinese”, i.e., oversimplifying and misleading the problem of causality between air pollutants and cancers.

被告蔡律師感覺在法庭中相當自在，經常離開分配給被告的座位，然後改坐到法庭中間，通常那是保留給專家與原告的席次。他還會向法官表示「我用白話跟你講」，比如，這其中問題，是過分簡化、誤導了空氣污染物與癌症之間的因果關係，等等。

The head of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Att. Thomas Chan. After this hearing, in May 2016, he was invited to stand as the Deputy Minister of the Environmental Protection Administration (Taiwan EPA), a position he left in September 2018. In the meantime, he could not attend anymore court hearings and his younger colleagues had a harder time with the judge.

原告律師團團長，詹順貴律師。這次的法院庭審結束後，2016年5月他受邀參選台灣環保署副署長，而於2018年9月離職。在此期間，他不得參與法院庭審，使他的年輕同事後續面對法官時變得更加艱難。

Yunlin District Court, September 2017, the sixth court hearing.

Ms. Wu, the wife of a plaintiff with cancer, was sitting behind me; as we were waiting for the hearing to start, I asked her about her husband’s health; she started crying.

And soon after the discussion began, defendant Att. Tsai went to sit in the middle of the courtroom to argue that the research by Chan C.C. was “only one point of view”.

2017年9月，於雲林地方法院第六次開庭。

坐在我後面的是吳女士，她是一位患有癌症的原告的妻子。當我們在等待法院庭審開始時，我問起她丈夫的健康狀況，她便忍不住開始哭泣。

才討論開始後不久，被告蔡律師再次來到法庭中間，爭論詹長權教授的研究「只有一種觀點」。

The judge is so ignorant of what epidemiological evidence is—and so little interested in learning about it—that the defendants can easily play their misleading game.

法官對流行病學的證據是什麼幾乎一無所知，也沒什麼興趣去了解它，以至於被告藉機玩他們誤導的遊戲。

 I tried to adopt the judge’s position to imagine how he might appreciate defendant Att. Tsai’s translations of the debate in “plain Chinese”, the other lawyers and the audience behind: a few plaintiffs and environmental groups in the first row, including a foreigner (me), and FPG employees in the third row.

我試圖採納法官的立場，想像他將如何嘗試認同被告蔡律師用「白話」辯論，其他律師和聽眾則於後座：後座第一排為幾位原告和環保團體，包括外國人（我），以及後座第三排坐著幾位台塑員工。

On the left, defendant Att. Chang argues that the plaintiffs must prove a reasonable probability that “substances” from the petrochemical zone cause cancer (the defendants do not use the words “air pollutants”). At least now, they do not argue that the plaintiffs should prove which substance from which company chimney is causing the plaintiffs’ cancers, as they asked for during the first hearings.

左邊為被告張律師，他辯稱原告必須證明石化工業區排出的「物質」有致癌的可能性（被告不使用「空氣污染物」一詞）。至少現在，他們不主張原告應證明：是由哪家公司煙囪排放的物質而導致原告罹癌，這是他們在第一次法院庭審中要求過的。

Yunlin District Court, 10 0ctober 2019.

For once, the judge made a sound request of the lawyers: to translate those complex and very technical matters into plain Chinese. Defendant Att. Tsai has been eager to meet this demand, punctuating his explanation in Mandarin with some Taiwanese language. Actually, many plaintiffs do not really understand Mandarin, so it would be helpful for them if the hearings could be conducted in Taiwanese. But anyhow, given the little attention the judge gives them, these hearings are obviously not framed for them.

2019年10月10日，於雲林地方法院。

至少，法官曾經對律師提出了一個合理要求：將那些複雜且技術性很強的問題翻成白話中文。被告蔡律師一直渴望嘗試這種方式，並加入不少台語來解釋。事實上，其實許多原告並不真正懂中文，因為他們使用台語。因此，若法院庭審以台語進行的話，對這些原告會有幫助。 但無論如何，由於法官注意道他們，這些法院庭審顯然不是為他們所安排的。

And here is Att. Tsai who comes again in the middle of the room for his show. Despite the rules  that impose the wearing of masks in prevention of the Covid-19, he just takes it off. His excuse is that it’s not convenient for speaking. But after five minutes, the judge finally asks him to put the mask back on.

被告蔡律師再次在法庭中間「展演」。儘管因Covid-19的關係，入內須戴口罩的規定，但他坦白說這樣自己不方便說話，因此將口罩卸下。 但是五分鐘後，法官還是要求他：「請把口罩戴上」。

Defendant Att. Wu argues that the plaintiffs must prove “a reasonable probability” of at least 50% of risk. “In Taiwan, there’s a new case of cancer every five minutes. These can’t be all attributed to air pollution. Moreover, our company ranks among one of the best in the world for the respect of environmental protection. Besides, the plaintiffs should not treat the courtroom as if it were an academic conference. Scientific simulations are not equal to solid data from the EPA.”

被告吳律師認為，原告必須證明至少有50％風險的「合理蓋然性」，因為「在台灣，每五分鐘就有一個新的癌症病例，這些難以全部歸因於空氣污染。再者，我們公司在環境保護方面，是世界最佳公司之一。 此外，原告不應濫用法庭資源，把這裡當作學術會議做研究，科學模擬並無法為EPA提供可靠的數據。」