Taiwan's legal system attracts withering criticism from professional and lay quarters, and at times not without reason. Rarely mentioned, however, is the fact that the day-to-day workings of the legal system proceed with little controversy. The need for reform is clear, but for now the fundamentals are attended to and there are mechanisms of appeal in place to protect against error and excess to some degree.
Yesterday saw the start of the release of more than 25,000 prisoners, courtesy of an amnesty lobbied for by acolytes of President Chen Shui-bian (
Recent and controversial overseas examples of executive privilege overriding judges and juries include US President George W. Bush commuting a jail term for White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby ahead of a possible full pardon. Then, yesterday, we saw an example of this process in our region that was applied to a person not yet convicted.
Australian immigration minister Kevin Andrews has used his discretionary powers to revoke the visa of Mohamed Haneef, an Indian doctor who had been detained without charge under special security legislation over alleged links to terrorists in England. Although he was granted bail over the terrorism probe, Haneef will be detained in an immigration detention center until his trial concludes, when he will be convicted as a terrorist of some nature or, in a Kafkaesque scenario, deported as an undesirable if found not guilty.
The online edition of the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday reported that the minister received information from federal police that prompted the decision. But why wasn't this information -- if there actually was any information -- brought to the attention of the court in the first place?
The conduct of the minister might be legal in the strict sense and a potential vote-winner, but it is also an act of impressive contempt for the Australian legal system, and not just because the minister is threatening Haneef's ability to receive a fair trial. The message is loud and clear: On matters of national security or the perception of such, or on anything else, the government will prevail over the courts by any means necessary, and that evidence, innocence and personal reputation count for nothing where foreigners are involved.
In recent years the Australian government has made a mockery of natural justice by creating and revising, on a needs-be basis, laws excising offshore territory for the purposes of limiting the legal options of asylum seekers. This is merely one example of its exploitation of foreigners for political gain at a time of genuine cause for alarm over global terrorism.
The curious thing is that in so many other ways Australia has been and is a generous and just nation to its new arrivals. How mystifying it is, then, that such horse play should send a message to the region that most Australians surely would rather not hear: "Our legal system is not competent to pronounce guilt, so the government shall do so by fiat."
Taiwanese are fortunate not to have a homegrown terror threat. Thus, it is unlikely that Taiwanese will find themselves at the wrong end of an Australian ministerial order canceling a visa on "character" grounds over terrorism fears.
However, this cavalier approach to executive power is not just a sign of things to come, but also a sign of the way things have been developing for some time in Australian federal governance. Given the record of Prime Minister John Howard and his Cabinet in playing dirty politics on immigration and other domestic ethnic difficulties, it is worth keeping an eye out for what will happen next.
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reach the point of confidence that they can start and win a war to destroy the democratic culture on Taiwan, any future decision to do so may likely be directly affected by the CCP’s ability to promote wars on the Korean Peninsula, in Europe, or, as most recently, on the Indian subcontinent. It stands to reason that the Trump Administration’s success early on May 10 to convince India and Pakistan to deescalate their four-day conventional military conflict, assessed to be close to a nuclear weapons exchange, also served to
The recent aerial clash between Pakistan and India offers a glimpse of how China is narrowing the gap in military airpower with the US. It is a warning not just for Washington, but for Taipei, too. Claims from both sides remain contested, but a broader picture is emerging among experts who track China’s air force and fighter jet development: Beijing’s defense systems are growing increasingly credible. Pakistan said its deployment of Chinese-manufactured J-10C fighters downed multiple Indian aircraft, although New Delhi denies this. There are caveats: Even if Islamabad’s claims are accurate, Beijing’s equipment does not offer a direct comparison
After India’s punitive precision strikes targeting what New Delhi called nine terrorist sites inside Pakistan, reactions poured in from governments around the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a statement on May 10, opposing terrorism and expressing concern about the growing tensions between India and Pakistan. The statement noticeably expressed support for the Indian government’s right to maintain its national security and act against terrorists. The ministry said that it “works closely with democratic partners worldwide in staunch opposition to international terrorism” and expressed “firm support for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India
Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) has said that the armed forces must reach a high level of combat readiness by 2027. That date was not simply picked out of a hat. It has been bandied around since 2021, and was mentioned most recently by US Senator John Cornyn during a question to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday. It first surfaced during a hearing in the US in 2021, when then-US Navy admiral Philip Davidson, who was head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said: “The threat [of military
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