About Lumina Justice Foundation

That small, steady light is what we strive to embody.

Why We Exist

The Lumina Justice Foundation was established in Taiwan to stand alongside those who have been wrongfully convicted and to push for a fairer, more accountable legal system. Our name comes from the firefly, a creature that glows only in the purest darkness. That small, steady light is what we strive to embody.

A wrongful conviction is one of the gravest things a legal system can do to a person. The harm goes far beyond the courtroom. It is a loss of years, of dignity, and of trust in institutions that were supposed to protect you. We were founded because no one in that position should have to face it alone.

Who We Are

We are guided by eleven directors and three supervisors with deep expertise in law, human rights, and criminal justice. Our ambition is not simply to overturn individual verdicts. We are here for the long term, working toward a legal system that the public can genuinely trust.

Board of Directors & Supervisors →
Our Team →

14

Founding Professionals

Law × Academia × Public Affairs

What We Do

Our work is organized around five areas.

  1. Relief and Assistance
    We provide direct support to wrongfully convicted individuals and work to improve the legal mechanisms available for post-conviction review, so that pathways to justice are accessible to everyone who needs them.
  2. Research and Reform
    We research the procedures that govern investigation, prosecution, trial, and sentencing, as well as prosecutorial conduct and criminal policy. Our goal is to identify where the system falls short and produce concrete, evidence-based recommendations for change.
  3. Advocacy and Implementation
    We advocate publicly for fair legal procedures and engage directly with institutions to make sure those standards are applied inside the system, not just stated in principle.
  4. Transparency and Oversight
    We promote openness in how the justice system operates, protect judicial human rights, and push for proper procedural oversight so the system is held to the standards it claims to uphold.
  5. Communication and Education
    We engage the public through education, advocacy, and research. A society that understands its justice system is better placed to hold it accountable.

Our Mission

Our mission is built on four commitments: upholding human rights, strengthening support for the wrongfully convicted, advancing judicial reform, and promoting social justice. We believe every person is entitled to dignity, and that a society serious about justice must be willing to confront and correct its own failures.

Our Vision

We believe that relief from a wrongful conviction cannot stop at a not-guilty verdict. A verdict does not undo the years lost, the reputations damaged, or the harm done by a system that got it wrong. For justice to be genuine, institutions must be willing to look back, acknowledge what happened, and take real responsibility.

We also believe the legal system must be capable of humility. When the state wrongfully convicts someone, restoring their innocence on paper is only a first step. The harder work is building a system that learns from its mistakes and puts the right safeguards in place.

That long-term commitment to reform is at the heart of what we do. We want every mistake the system makes to become an opportunity to do better, and we are here to make sure that opportunity is not wasted.

Our Role in the Justice System

We do not see ourselves as adversaries of the courts or the legal profession. We aim to be a constructive voice, one that holds institutions to their own stated values of fairness, due process, and the presumption of innocence. We believe accountability and humility are not weaknesses in a legal system. They are signs that it genuinely serves the public.