Minister of Justice Lo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) yesterday embarked on a historic five-day visit to China, where she is scheduled to speak at a college of law, among other activities.
Lo is the first Taiwanese minister of justice to visit China in an official capacity.
She was invited by China’s Supreme People’s Court chief prosecutor Cao Jiangmin (曹建明) when Cao visited Taiwan last year.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
After receiving instructions from President Ma Ing-jeou (馬英九) and consulting with the legislature’s major political parties, Lo told China that she would accept the invitation “under conditions of equality and respect,” the Ministry of Justice said yesterday in a news release.
Lo is to attend a meeting in Beijing with Cao and other high-ranking Chinese officials in charge of liaising with Taiwan over legal issues, the ministry said.
Lo is to give a talk on Taiwan’s judicial reforms at China’s National Prosecutors’ College in Beijing and attend an academic conference at East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, where she is to have talks with China-based Taiwanese businesspeople on their legal needs, the ministry said.
Lo is scheduled to return to Taiwan on Friday.
Lo would be able to contribute to China’s legal reforms by sharing Taiwan’s experience and facilitating cross-strait exchanges over legal issues, the ministry said.
Taiwan’s “advanced experience in the rule of law,” with regard to “striking a balance between strictness and clemency in criminal policy,” compensation packages for victims of crime, and the Administrative Enforcement Agency’s “justice and care” doctrine would be of benefit to China, it added.
However, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) yesterday accused Lo of taking advantage of the trip to evade questions from lawmakers at a session of the Legislative Yuan, adding that the visit is poorly timed because controversy over the death penalty has been raised over the decapitation of a four-year-old girl in Taipei yesterday.
“The public expects Lo to make statements on this issue, but where is the minister of justice?” Wang said.
Wang added that Taiwan and China’s legal systems are incompatible, which calls into question the productivity of attempting to make “exchanges between democracy and totalitarianism.”
Even if Lo had achieved “Nobel Prize-worthy” breakthroughs, there would be no room for implementing any policy changes during the remainder of Ma’s term, Wang said, deriding the visit as “a recreational graduation trip.”
Wang vowed that DPP lawmakers would make Lo explain the purpose of her visit to China upon her return.
Additional reporting by CNA
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS