Amid deeply worrying trends in judicial affairs, the Ministry of Justice’s preparations to abolish the death penalty next year come across as an enlightened, if bizarre, exception.
The good news would be that if a miscarriage of justice resulted in the heaviest penalty for an innocent defendant, that person would at least have much more time to fight back. The bad news for many victims of crime would be the trading of retributive justice for a more humanitarian approach to punishment — and the knowledge that the worst murderers and the most destructive of drug dealers and others would not be killed for their crimes.
One such victim is Pai Ping-ping (白冰冰), a TV entertainer and actor whose life was devastated in 1997 when her daughter Pai Hsiao-yen (白曉燕) was kidnapped, held for ransom, mutilated and killed.
It is one of the most notorious murder cases in Taiwan’s history, but Hsiao-yen’s death was only the beginning. A farcical police investigation — law enforcement agencies spying on each other, an officer taking credit for another officer’s shooting of a suspect, reckless weapon use and other Keystone Cops antics — only ended when the lead suspect surrendered after invading the home of a South African military attache and taking his family hostage.
Ever since, Pai Ping-ping has been a trenchant supporter of the death penalty. Today, with the justice ministry on the verge of withdrawing the punishment, she has spoken out, warning that she might form a political party and study law in order to be able to personally conduct executions. If a majority of Taiwanese supported abolition, she said, she would commit ritual suicide.
There may yet be political capital in such language; curious eyes would then turn to who would bankroll her tilt for political power, and indeed whether she is sustained by something other than years of suffering and ferocious righteous indignation.
With enough pomp and money, Pai could be elected to the legislature via the “legislator at large” system based on the national proportion of the vote. All it would then come down to is whether she could distract enough voters from bread-and-butter issues and convince them that Taiwan should aggressively reactivate processes of capital punishment.
Of equal interest is the possibility of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government being embarrassed by a celebrity and former supporter of the opposition who endorsed President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2008. The timing was no accident: Ma’s Democratic Progressive Party rival, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), served as a negotiator during the siege at the attache’s house, which earned him Pai’s unrelenting hatred, even though his actions probably helped save the lives of the attache’s family.
Pai Ping-ping has no understanding of how the Ministry of Justice has corroded the nation’s justice system under the watch of Minister Wang Ching-feng (王清峰). For her, what matters is that the death penalty be retained and that “true justice” be handed down to the guilty — regardless of the competence of judges, the ethics of prosecutors, the erosion of the rights of the defendant and his or her legal team and the influence of the media in high-profile cases.
Pai’s message is cynical and authoritarian. However, because of her tragic experience, few have had or will have the courage to stand up to her and say that she is peddling drivel. But the unspoken fact remains: While suffering usually attracts sympathy, it does not necessarily confer wisdom.
Chinese actor Alan Yu (于朦朧) died after allegedly falling from a building in Beijing on Sept. 11. The actor’s mysterious death was tightly censored on Chinese social media, with discussions and doubts about the incident quickly erased. Even Hong Kong artist Daniel Chan’s (陳曉東) post questioning the truth about the case was automatically deleted, sparking concern among overseas Chinese-speaking communities about the dark culture and severe censorship in China’s entertainment industry. Yu had been under house arrest for days, and forced to drink with the rich and powerful before he died, reports said. He lost his life in this vicious
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
In South Korea, the medical cosmetic industry is fiercely competitive and prices are low, attracting beauty enthusiasts from Taiwan. However, basic medical risks are often overlooked. While sharing a meal with friends recently, I heard one mention that his daughter would be going to South Korea for a cosmetic skincare procedure. I felt a twinge of unease at the time, but seeing as it was just a casual conversation among friends, I simply reminded him to prioritize safety. I never thought that, not long after, I would actually encounter a patient in my clinic with a similar situation. She had
RSS