The chemical castration of repeat sex offenders is a form of therapy, not a punishment, and it does not need to be written into law, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker said yesterday.
KMT Legislator Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) said that in a number of public hearings organized to discuss amendments to the Sexual Assault Crime Prevention Act (性侵害犯罪防治法), a majority of specialists and academics agreed that the chemical castration of repeat sex offenders should be considered therapeutic intervention. If that definition receives broad public acceptance it would not be necessary to insert a new clause into the law to authorize its use in specific cases, Pan said.
Echoing Pan’s views, Food and Drug Administration Deputy Director Wang Tsung-hsi (王宗曦) said chemical castration is purely a medical matter. Since chemical castration is not part of the penalty regime for offenders there was no need to amend the law to implement it, he said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
However, Ministry of Justice Chief Secretary Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said the Criminal Law would have to be amended in order to carry out the chemical castration of sex offenders.
If chemical castration is to be used as a form of punishment, the penal code must first be amended, Tsai said.
According to Pan, legislators from across party lines have agreed to prioritize the screening of revisions to the Sexual Assault Crime Prevention Act.
“The KMT will see to it that the amendments are passed in the next legislative session,” Pan said.
The issue of chemical castration was raised in March after a repeat sex offender allegedly raped and murdered a teenage girl shortly after his release from prison. The man was released in February and was scheduled for his first rehabilitation counseling session on April 1.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS