The Criminal Investigation Bureau recently released data showing that from July 27 to Nov. 16, it probed 35 cases of employment abductions, home invasions and human trafficking in cities and counties across Taiwan, with 150 victims rescued.
The local elections took the spotlight away from these cases and robbed them of the attention they deserved. Undoubtedly, this is a blow to the government and its international image.
The criminals involved in employment scams and international organ harvesting are despicable, but it is possible that some of the victims might have intended to gain from the fraudsters — without expecting that they would become prey.
It seems necessary to amend the law to prevent get-rich-quick schemes, and generally prevent deeper abuses.
The Legislative Yuan amended the Criminal Code in 2014 by adding Article 339-4 to increase penalties for fraud, which were previously governed by Article 5 of the code, covering crimes committed outside the country.
In 2017, the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪防制條例) was extensively amended to redefine a criminal organization as “a structured, permanent or profit-seeking organization” involved in certain offenses.
At that time, apart from penalties, offenders had to perform “compulsory labor” for three years prior to sentencing.
Statistics show that the amendments effectively lowered such crimes.
To protect human rights, the then-Council of Grand Justices in 2019 issued Constitutional Interpretation No. 775 to declare that Article 47 of the Criminal Code was unconstitutional for stating “the principal punishment for a recidivist shall be increased up to one half.”
In several landmark rulings, the Supreme Court has said that the definition of “recidivist” does not conform with progress made in modern criminal law reform and should be abolished.
Moreover, the Constitutional Court on Dec. 10 issued Constitutional Interpretation No. 812, declaring that the compulsory labor penalties in the Criminal Code and various “special criminal laws” are unconstitutional, and have lost efficacy since the date of the interpretation.
It remains to be seen whether the interpretations might increase fraudulent behavior, and whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship.
Taiwan’s Criminal Code over time has been adopting the characteristics of Japanese and German criminal laws. Although Japan’s code does not include compulsory labor, the punishment for a recidivist can be increased by twice the maximum term of imprisonment for the crime, which is heavier than the punishment for a recidivist in Taiwan.
The German Criminal Code abolished recidivist punishment in 1986, although Section 66 of the code states: “The court orders preventive detention in addition to a sentence of imprisonment where ... the offender has twice been sentenced to imprisonment for a term of at least one year in each case.”
This allows the court to remove dangerous repeat offenders from society — organized crime members and sex offenders, for instance — while correcting them simultaneously through “preventive detention” to maintain social order. There is no time limit for such detention.
With recidivist punishment and preventive detention, Japan and Germany have effectively curbed fraudulent activity.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Criminal Code is stuck between the Japanese and German models.
Chao Hsuey-wen is a university assistant professor.
Translated by Eddy Chang
US President Donald Trump last week told reporters that he had signed about 12 letters to US trading partners, which were set to be sent out yesterday, levying unilateral tariff rates of up to 70 percent from Aug. 1. However, Trump did not say which countries the letters would be sent to, nor did he discuss the specific tariff rates, reports said. The news of the tariff letters came as Washington and Hanoi reached a trade deal earlier last week to cut tariffs on Vietnamese exports to the US to 20 percent from 46 percent, making it the first Asian country
On Monday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) delivered a welcome speech at the ILA-ASIL Asia-Pacific Research Forum, addressing more than 50 international law experts from more than 20 countries. With an aim to refute the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) claim to be the successor to the 1945 Chinese government and its assertion that China acquired sovereignty over Taiwan, Lin articulated three key legal positions in his speech: First, the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Declaration were not legally binding instruments and thus had no legal effect for territorial disposition. All determinations must be based on the San Francisco Peace
As things heated up in the Middle East in early June, some in the Pentagon resisted American involvement in the Israel-Iran war because it would divert American attention and resources from the real challenge: China. This was exactly wrong. Rather, bombing Iran was the best thing that could have happened for America’s Asia policy. When it came to dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, “all options are on the table” had become an American mantra over the past two decades. But the more often US administration officials insisted that military force was in the cards, the less anyone believed it. After
During an impromptu Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally on Tuesday last week to protest what the party called the unfairness of the judicial system, a young TPP supporter said that if Taiwan goes to war, he would “surrender to the [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army [PLA] with unyielding determination.” The rally was held after former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng’s (彭振聲) wife took her life prior to Pong’s appearance in court to testify in the Core Pacific corruption case involving former Taipei mayor and TPP chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). The TPP supporter said President William Lai (賴清德) was leading them to die on