Judicial Yuan President Lai Hau-min (賴浩敏) yesterday said the nation’s civilian judges are fully capable and ready to handle any military judicial cases that may be transferred to the civil judiciary after an amendment to the Code of Court Martial Procedure (軍事審判法) was approved.
Lai’s remarks in the Yilan District Court yesterday morning came after an amendment to the Code of Court Martial Procedure was passed by the legislature last week, under which military prosecutions and trials during peacetime are due to be transferred to the jurisdiction of the civil judiciary.
Yilan District Court President Liu Shou-sung (劉壽嵩) said the district court plans to have male judges preside over military cases for the first year, allowing time for female judges to gain knowledge of the workings of the military.
In other developments, ex-convict and debt collector Tung Nien-tai (董念台) yesterday filed a lawsuit for “psychological abuse” against Chang You-hua (張友驊), a frequent guest on political talk shows, saying that Chang had made groundless accusations against military personnel allegedly involved in the death of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘), adding that their families could not live with his alleged mental abuse.
Tung said a family member of a military serviceman indicted over the Hung case wrote to him, saying: “The family has been nervous every day because they do not know what fabricated accusations Chang would make on political talks shows at night.”
Tung did not say which family had made the complaint.
This was the third lawsuit filed by Tung in the space of a week.
He first filed a lawsuit against members of activist group Citizen 1985 and Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸), the sister of Hung Chung-chiu, saying they forced the legislature to amend the Code of Court Martial Procedure and violated the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪條例).
Tung also accused Citizen 1985 of fraud, claiming that the group had illegally raised funds as an non-certified organization.
The group organized a mass rally on Aug. 3 at which an estimated 200,000 people protested against what they said was the military’s poor handling of the investigation into Hung Chung-chiu’s death.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
RSS