For almost a decade, the Parents' Association for Persons with Intellectual Disability has advocated measures to give intellectually challenged criminal suspects the services of a lawyer during police questioning and prosecutorial investigations. A press conference held by the Legal Aid Foundation last Monday marked the formal beginning of such a measure.
The services offered by the foundation will now move beyond helping only during court proceedings to providing aid during investigations by police and prosecutors. This means that the foundation will have to handle more administrative contacts and find more compassionate lawyers willing to stand by around the clock.
Given that the foundation does not provide travel subsidies and that its lawyers are paid a mere NT$600 per hour and NT$1,000 during night hours, it is to Taiwan's credit that the foundation has found lawyers willing to do all they can to protect the human rights of those with intellectual disabilities.
The conditions for providing legal assistance in cases involving the intellectually disabled and compulsory defense cases differ. In compulsory defense cases, the lightest punishment for the crime must be a minimum of three years in prison and the defendant must lack financial resources. Intellectually disabled suspects will get assistance regardless of the kind of crime and financial standing.
Paragraph 31 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (
In March this year, however, the procedure was not followed when Chen Jung-chi (陳榮吉) was mistakenly arrested in Chiayi. The Ministry of Justice's response to the foundation's appeal shows that the prosecutor handling the case felt that "the main suspect could express himself clearly and denied involvement" and the condition that he must be "unable to make a complete statement" was therefore not met. Maybe the semantic difference between being "unable to make a complete statement" and being "completely unable to make a statement" was confusing in Chen's case.
Social workers and special education teachers generally believe that being "unable to make a complete statement" can be applied to almost all those with a certified intellectual disability.
If authorities make only a superficial judgement that an intellectually disabled criminal suspect is able to express himself or herself clearly and find his or her answers to be reasonable, then they can conclude that the person is not legally intellectually disabled and that there is therefore no need for a lawyer to be present during the investigation. This situation bodes ill for the human rights of intellectually disabled persons.
The fact is that over the years, police arresting intellectually disabled criminal suspects have had to search the suspect's wallet to find contact information for family members so that they can accompany the suspect.
After Paragraph 31 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was passed last year, prosecutors also set up stricter standards foruse when investigating intellectually disabled suspects. Parents of intellectually disabled around Taiwan are grateful for this. But we also hope that this important human rights progress will give prosecutors and police an even stronger feeling of mission, because when the intellectually disabled are given protection, there is even less risk that others will be bullied.
Sun Yi-hsin is deputy secretary-general of the Parents' Association for Persons with Intellectual Disability.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Victory in conflict requires mastery of two “balances”: First, the balance of power, and second, the balance of error, or making sure that you do not make the most mistakes, thus helping your enemy’s victory. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made a decisive and potentially fatal error by making an enemy of the Jewish Nation, centered today in the State of Israel but historically one of the great civilizations extending back at least 3,000 years. Mind you, no Israeli leader has ever publicly declared that “China is our enemy,” but on October 28, 2025, self-described Chinese People’s Armed Police (PAP) propaganda
Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat,
China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, entered service this week after a commissioning ceremony in China’s Hainan Province on Wednesday last week. Chinese state media reported that the Fujian would be deployed to the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and the western Pacific. It seemed that the Taiwan Strait being one of its priorities meant greater military pressure on Taiwan, but it would actually put the Fujian at greater risk of being compromised. If the carrier were to leave its home port of Sanya and sail to the East China Sea or the Yellow Sea, it would have to transit the
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom, sparked by the arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, took the world by storm. Within weeks, everyone was talking about it, trying it and had an opinion. It has transformed the way people live, work and think. The trend has only accelerated. The AI snowball continues to roll, growing larger and more influential across nearly every sector. Higher education has not been spared. Universities rushed to embrace this technological wave, eager to demonstrate that they are keeping up with the times. AI literacy is now presented as an essential skill, a key selling point to attract prospective students.
RSS