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Draft amendments to keep convicts from fleeing country

To ensure that police don't lose track of convicted criminals before their jail terms begin, the Executive Yuan intends to approve draft amendments to the Criminal Code on Wednesday.

The draft amendments would prohibit convicted felons from leaving certain court-ordered areas while they wait for prosecutors to summon them or for their sentences to begin.

Legal experts and human rights specialists, however, criticized the overhaul as an infringement on the basic human rights of convicts.

"The Cabinet is definitely missing the mark if the legal revision is aimed at preventing people like Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄) from fleeing the country, because he was supposed to be banned from doing so in the first place," said Kenneth Chiu (邱晃泉), an attorney at the law firm Kew & Lord.

What the government should have focused on is how Chu managed to get out of the country, Chiu said.

"The amendment of the law seems to tell all convicted felons that they cannot go anywhere before serving their jail terms," he said.

After being released on NT$5 million bail in June, Chu, former speaker of the Kaohsiung City Council, escaped last month from under the noses of police. He had been sentenced in late September to 22 months in jail for vote-buying.

Chu was supposed to report to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office to begin his jail term on Oct. 16, but an investigation showed that he had fled the country on Oct. 10, despite supervision by officers. A reward of NT$1 million has been posted for the fugitive.

Echoing Chiu's opinion, Hsueh Chin-feng (薛欽峰), a lawyer and an executive director of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (台灣人權促進會), said that the Cabinet should have focused on how prosecutors can more swiftly execute court rulings after verdicts are reached.

"Chu wouldn't have fled the country if prosecutors had thrown him in jail right after the verdict," Hsueh said.
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