Now that the Legislative Yuan has passed the Stalking and Harassment Prevention Act (跟蹤騷擾防制法), to be put into effect six months after it is approved by the president, there will finally be a legal basis and a mechanism for dealing with people engaged in long-term stalking behavior.
The problem is that the definition of stalking is too vague, and this creates difficulty in enforcing the law.
In the legislation, so long as a suspected stalker does not enter private property and has not made any verbal or physical threats, the person being stalked can only ask the police to intervene based on the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法).
If the stalker does not desist from the behavior, they can only be fined less than NT$3,000 or be admonished, which have limited preventive effects.
Also, the legislation allowing for a court-issued restraining order only applies to the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (家庭暴力防治法). If the alleged stalker and the person being stalked are not related or living at the same address, a restraining order cannot be issued.
The enforcement agencies are therefore unable to intervene unless the stalker assaults the victim, a state of affairs that is a farce.
The stalking and harassment prevention legislation would criminalize stalking behavior, and the offender could be imprisoned for up to three years, or up to five years if the offender is carrying a weapon.
By the principle of prosecution as last resort, stalking behavior would not result in a trial without a complaint being filed, respecting the wishes of the stalking victim, and prosecutors would only be able to apply for pre-emptive detention after criminal charges are pressed.
As soon as the stalking victim reports the behavior, the police are obligated to investigate the matter.
If the complaint is valid, the police would be required to give the stalker a formal warning in writing. If the stalker fails to comply over a period of two years, the victim could ask a court to issue a protective restraining order.
If the stalker then contravenes this restraining order and continues the behavior, they could receive a sentence of up to three years.
On paper, the new law appears to be sufficient to curtail stalking behavior. Unfortunately, it would only be effective if the police are able in the first instance to accurately identify the alleged stalking behavior.
Article 3, paragraph 1 of the Stalking and Harassment Prevention Act attempts to define what stalking behavior is to prevent any ambiguity, listing eight types of behaviors. The trouble is that despite the ample examples given, the duplication and crossover between the listed behaviors and their inherent ambiguity — such as the differences between undue surveillance and monitoring, threatening and insulting, or stalking and tailing — make the definitions of stalking itself difficult to pin down.
In an attempt to prevent this list from getting out of hand, the law requires that acts of harassment be against the will of the victim and be related to sex or gender, in addition to the requirement that the behavior in question leads to fear or intimidation.
Unfortunately, the requirement of behavior consisting of sexual or gender-related assault is open to much legal interpretation, and it could lead to concerns over arbitrary judgements being made.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate law professor at Aletheia University and the director of the university’s Research Center for Criminal Law.
Translated by Paul Cooper
In a meeting with Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste on Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) vowed to continue providing aid to Haiti. Taiwan supports Haiti with development in areas such as agriculture, healthcare and education through initiatives run by the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF). The nation it has established itself as a responsible, peaceful and innovative actor committed to global cooperation, Jean-Baptiste said. Testimonies such as this give Taiwan a voice in the global community, where it often goes unheard. Taiwan’s reception in Haiti also contrasts with how China has been perceived in countries in the region
The world has become less predictable, less rules-based, and more shaped by the impulses of strongmen and short-term dealmaking. Nowhere is this more consequential than in East Asia, where the fate of democratic Taiwan hinges on how global powers manage — or mismanage — tensions with an increasingly assertive China. The return of Donald Trump to the White House has deepened the global uncertainty, with his erratic, highly personalized foreign-policy approach unsettling allies and adversaries alike. Trump appears to treat foreign policy like a reality show. Yet, paradoxically, the global unpredictability may offer Taiwan unexpected deterrence. For China, the risk of provoking the
On April 13, I stood in Nanan (南安), a Bunun village in southern Hualien County’s Jhuosi Township (卓溪), absorbing lessons from elders who spoke of the forest not as backdrop, but as living presence — relational, sacred and full of spirit. I was there with fellow international students from National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) participating in a field trip that would become one of the most powerful educational experiences of my life. Ten days later, a news report in the Taipei Times shattered the spell: “Formosan black bear shot and euthanized in Hualien” (April 23, page 2). A tagged bear, previously released
Young supporters of former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) were detained for posting the names and photographs of judges and prosecutors believed to be overseeing the Core Pacific City redevelopment corruption case. The supporters should be held responsible for their actions. As for Ko’s successor, TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), he should reflect on whether his own comments are provocative and whether his statements might be misunderstood. Huang needs to apologize to the public and the judiciary. In the article, “Why does sorry seem to be the hardest word?” the late political commentator Nan Fang Shuo (南方朔) wrote
RSS