The Council of Grand Justices yesterday ruled that several articles of the Anti-Hoodlum Law (檢肅流 氓條例) were unconstitutional and should be abolished within one year of the interpretation's publication.
The grand justices issued the ruling at the request of Taoyuan and Taichung district court judges, who questioned the constitutionality of these articles.
The council concluded that certain terms in Article 2, subsections 3 and 5 of the law, such as "bullying the good," "those of an evil character," "loafers" and "rascals" should be abolished because the descriptions are vague and they are conduct or terms that cannot be confirmed via judicial review and therefore no longer fit with the principle of certainty in law.
The council also ruled that Article 12, Paragraph 1, which places restrictions on the right of the accused to cross examine witnesses and access testimony for fear that vengeful acts may be taken against the witness should also be abolished within the same time frame.
Since the accused may be given a severe sentence that restricts his or her personal freedom, the right of the accused to interrogate and cross-examine witnesses must therefore be guaranteed, it said.
Other methods could be used to protect the identity of witnesses, such as covering their face or using technology to disguise their voice, the council said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching