The judiciary has often been criticized for not being politically color blind, with a number of indictments and rulings handed out by prosecutors and courts being perceived by the public as involving double standards.
Following an outpouring of public indignation last week over the sentencing of former Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世), which prompted heated discussion online with many netizens suggesting that possessing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) membership offers better protection than any other lucky charm — another case late last week also stirred up controversy.
On Saturday, 72-year-old Peter Wang (王獻極) and 58-year-old Lai Fang-cheng (賴芳徵) were indicted by the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office on charges of violating the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) for allegedly throwing objects at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during his speech at the Jingmei Human Rights Memorial and Cultural Park late last year.
In their defense, Wang said his act of hurling a shoe at Ma was an act that should be protected under the right to freedom of speech, while Lai claimed that the papers he threw into the air were not directed at the president but at the event’s organizers.
Anyone guilty of a malicious action intended to cause bodily harm should rightfully be held accountable in accordance with the law. However, politicians being heckled by members of the public is not an uncommon sight in a democracy. Many may well recall the shoe-throwing faced by then-US president George W. Bush in December 2008 at a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq. So long as protesters harbor no intent to harm, government officials should be more open and receptive to public criticism and outrage, rather than automatically resorting to legal means that, in most cases — such as that of Wang and Lai — creates further public resentment and sows discord between the government and the public.
Ma’s predecessor, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), once said that people protesting and heckling politicians is a sign of a healthy democracy and even Ma previously said that “a head of state being heckled is not a big deal in a democratic society; there is no need to regard it as losing face.”
Many may recall how Ma, during his first presidential campaign in 2008, devoted a segment of his campaign platform to human rights, pledging to amend the Assembly and Parade Act and other laws if elected.
“There is a need to review the Assembly and Parade Act, the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法) and related laws so they can be updated to reflect the passage of time and be a positive force that propels society forward,” Ma said at the time.
Seven years have passed since Ma uttered those words and, in view of the indictment of Wang and Lai, it appears that the government still has lots to do to realize this promise.
The indictment also brought to mind the ruling handed down by the Taiwan High Court on April 8, 2010, finding Shih Ming-te (施明德) and 15 others responsible for leading red-clad protesters in a rally to oust Chen in late 2006 not guilty of violating the Assembly and Parade Act on the grounds that despite calls from police to end the rally, it was unlikely that the thousands of protesters participating could have dispersed in the amount of time allocated.
It seems paradoxical that those who led a large-scale illegal protest against the government were acquitted of violating the Assembly and Parade Act, while two elderly people who allegedly lobbed small objects at Ma were deemed guilty by Taipei prosecutors of violating the same law.
These different interpretations of the law reinforce not only the public’s perception that the judiciary applies double standards to those from the pan-blue and pan-green camps, but also demonstrates that the outdated law is itself riddled with problems.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers