Article 3 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) clearly states that “Food refers to products for human consumption or their ingredients.” This is the premise that defines the act’s parameters.
This provision, along with Article 15, Clause 7 of the act — “food products or additives that are adulterated or counterfeited are prohibited from being processed, mixed, packaged, transported, stocked, marketed, exported, imported or publicly displayed” — is what the Chiayi District Court based its ruling on when it gave Yung Cheng Oil Co (永成油脂) owner Tsai Chen-chou (蔡鎮州) a prison term of 15 years and a fine of NT$28 million (US$850,134) after the firm was found to have imported animal feed-grade oil from Vietnam-based Dai Hanh Phuc Co and mixed it with the lard it sold.
However, former employees of Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), which also imported feed-grade oil from Dai Hanh Phuc and used it in its food products, were acquitted of all charges by the Changhua District Court.
The contrary outcomes have left the public angry and questionong what legal basis the judges followed in their adjudications.
While some critics have tied the forner Ting Hsin employees’ acquittals to a loophole in the act, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators have argued strongly that existing provisions in the act are sufficient for them to have been found guilty and that the act did not address the safety of ingredients and end products separately, as judges claimed.
However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators proposed an amendment to the act, calling for legislation that would prohibit “inedible ingredients” from being processed or sold as food products.
The conflicting views provoked by the Ting Hsin case have yet again sparked a spat between the nation’s two main parties, with DPP lawmakers calling the KMT’s proposal a “decriminalizing clause” for Ting Hsin and all other firms that have been implicated in food scandals.
The wide divide between the stances of the two camps has only added to the public’s confusion over the issue, and legislators on both sides must resolve the complications of the case sensibly and not allow the debate to devolve into political mudslinging.
The judges involved also owe the public an explanation. As Changhua district prosecutors said that they plan to appeal the ruling, judges at the High Court should clarify the abstruse areas of the act to regain the public’s trust — especially in light of the widespread rumors that Ting Hsin has “guardians” in the nation’s judiciary system.
Esoteric legal proceedings aside, the acquittal of the former Ting Hsin employees has seriously compromised the public’s trust in the judiciary and demonstrated that the obscure language of some laws leaves them open to misuse.
The Changhua District Court’s ruling that unprocessed oil containing heavy metals is a legitimate ingredient, as long as the heavy metals are filtered out, was ridiculed by some who said that it implies refined dog shit could be a legitimate food ingredient.
This bitter remark begins to make sense when one considers that the law cannot possibly cover every possible human behavior. It is unreasonable to expect the law to state that a steak knife is meant for slicing up steak — not people — and the law cannot be expected to explicitly state that using ingredients not intended for human consumption in food is wrong. The potential for a list proscribing outlandish activities could go on and on.
Perhaps Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said it best when he vowed to “build a nation that people can understand with common sense.” Common sense is what the nation is most desperately in need of in its judiciary.
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