Thirty people died and 310 were injured in the gas pipeline explosions in Greater Kaohsiung on July 31 and Aug. 1, and legal responsibility is a key issue at this stage. The problem is, based on existing regulations, clarifying legal responsibility will be a long and arduous process.
The prime suspect behind this tragedy should be punished to the full extent of the law. At the moment, everyone is pointing their fingers at LCY Chemical Corp, and prosecutors are gathering evidence. However, because Kaohsiung has always been an industrial hub, the underground pipeline network is quite complex. This means that the great disaster was likely not the result of a single factor or the result of actions by any single company. Instead, the problem could well be a result of long-term collective breaches of environmental law.
According to the Criminal Code, there can only be “joint principal offenders” when there is contact and shared behavior of criminal intent between offenders. This kind of public safety case is unlikely to be considered intentional and is more likely to be considered a matter of professional malpractice, making it difficult to establish collective guilt among a group of joint principal offenders. Instead, offenders will be judged individually and separately.
Also, to show that a party is an offender, a cause-and-effect relationship must be proven, but in the case of the Kaohsiung explosions, many of the underground pipelines — including the ones that led to the disaster — might all have been damaged by the massive blasts. Since evidence is hard to find and might even have perished, the companies involved will have a chance to pass the buck to one another.
Even if some firms are found responsible for the accident, the Criminal Code says that because a juridical person cannot be punished, a regular person — such as the person in charge of a company or a company’s operator — will be held responsible for causing someone’s death or a fire due to professional malpractice.
Company officials might try to avoid responsibility by arguing that they are responsible for making decisions, not executing them. If in the end those who installed the underground pipelines are punished, the effort to clarify legal responsibility for the blasts will inevitably be criticized as unjust.
The difficulties in assigning criminal blame are also reflected in civil lawsuits for compensation. In particular, the pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses caused by the explosions are enormous, and compensation figures are expected to be high. The considerable legal fee that a complainant will have to pay might be an obstacle to entering a lawsuit. In addition, civil lawsuits in Taiwan are based on the principle of disposition, so a complainant has the burden of producing evidence and must prove that a defendant was negligent or that there is a cause-and-effect relationship as stipulated by the Civil Code.
Although a complainant can apply for legal assistance or file a class-action lawsuit or group litigation, the defendant has certain advantages, such as professional knowledge and information, not to mention that the complainant might have difficulty providing evidence given the destruction wrought by the explosions.
Even if the complainant wins the lawsuit, compensation claims might be as high as tens of billions or hundreds of billions of New Taiwan dollars judging from the scope of the damage, and compensation of several hundred millions or several billions of NT dollars from one or two companies would be insignificant.
Besides, reaching a verdict could take a long time. By that time, the companies responsible for the explosions might be bankrupt and all their property sold off. For the people affected by the disaster, such slow action will do nothing to remedy their current predicaments.
Hence, as moves to hasten the clarification of legal responsibilities continue, the number one task is to help people resume their normal lives quickly.
In the face of the massive budget and resources needed for reconstruction, it is absolutely necessary for the legislature to pass a special statute, similar to the Special Act for the Typhoon Morakot Post-Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction (莫拉克颱風災後重建特別條例). Then the nation will be able to handle the disaster with a dedicated budget and multiple financing methods based on the special statute. Otherwise, the dead will never rest in peace, and their loved ones will keep crying through the nights.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate professor of law at Aletheia Universit.
Translated By Eddy Chang
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