The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed a long-debated commutation bill granting amnesty to prisoners serving sentences of 18 months or less, among other commutation measures.
Although the pan-green camp supported the Cabinet's version of the commutation bill, the pan-blue version was passed only after a concesus was reached.
Earlier this year, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) proposed an amnesty plan in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the lifting of martial law and the 60th anniversary of the 228 Incident.
This was a civilian uprising against the then-KMT government that led to a bloody massacre.
Acting on Chen's directive, the Cabinet then drafted a commutation statute and submitted it for legislative review.
Although both the pan-green and pan-blue camps agreed on the commutation bill, disputes between the two camps still existed about the scope of offenses that would be eligible and on what grounds the commutation should be applied.
The draft bill proposed by the Cabinet called for an amnesty for prisoners sentenced to less than a year, while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus wanted to extend the amnesty to include prisoners sentenced to up to a year and half.
"Eighteen months is within the range of the lowest degree of jail time by legal definition," KMT Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said in a telephone interview.
However, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator William Lai (賴清德), suggested that the KMT proposal was tailored to benefit KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅).
Chiu was sentenced to 14 months in prison for violent conduct during a protest in Kaohsiung following the 2004 presidential election.
Chiu started his sentence in April.
In addition, the KMT caucus wanted to exclude commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the 228 Incident as a reason for the commutation.
"We believe that the 20th anniversary of the lifting of martial law should certainly be commemorated; however, mentioning the 228 Incident is too politically sensitive," Hsieh explained.
Besides the amnesty, other measures in the commutation bill included cutting death sentences to life in prison, cutting life in prison to 20 years in prison and cutting other sentences and fines in half, according to the passed bill.
The legislature also passed unanimously a non-binding resolution requesting a presidential amnesty for "rice bomber" Yang Ju-men (
Yang was arrested in November 2004 after he sprinkled small amounts of rice in his homemade explosives.
Nobody was injured in Yang's bombing campaign.
Yang said during his trial that he had resorted to the bombing campaign to attract the government's attention and highlight the plight of local farmers after the nation's accession to the WTO in 2002.
Meanwhile, the legislature was also scheduled to review amendments to the Temporary Act for Welfare Subsidies to the Elderly (敬老福利生活津貼暫行條例) and to the Temporary Statute Regarding the Welfare Pension of Senior Farmers (老年農民福利津貼暫行條例).
At the request of the DPP's legislative caucus, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) decided to refer the two amendments to cross-party negotiation rather than have them go through second and third readings.
Pan-blue lawmakers wanted the monthly pension for the elderly to be raised NT$3,000 to NT$6,000.
This amount that would cost the government an additional NT$29.5 billion (US$887 million) a year.
The proposed bill to increase the monthly stipend for elderly farmers from NT$5,000 to NT$6,000 was expected to be agreed to by the pan-blues and the Democratic Progressive Party.
Meanwhile the Taiwan Solidarity Union said that it should be increased to NT$13,350.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a