In July 2024, a Taipei public-sector recycling worker surnamed Huang (黃) turned himself in to the Ministry of Justice’s Agency Against Corruption after a complaint was received about him gifting a rice cooker slated for recycling to an elderly woman who scavenged garbage for a living. He was charged in June last year under the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例), and ultimately received a three-month jail term on a two-year suspended sentence, and was disenfranchised for one year. The ruling was lamented as excessively harsh and an example of the law leaving no room for compassion.
In the wake of this case, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) proposed a legislative amendment to exempt people from punishment in which the illicit gains from corruption are under NT$50,000 and the circumstances are deemed “minor.” On the surface, the proposal appears to provide protection for public servants like Huang; in reality, by putting a price tag on corruption, it opens Pandora’s box and represents a serious social crisis.
We cannot let a single case be used to weaken our defenses against systemic corruption. This is not about showing compassion to frontline workers, but rather the covert legalization of corruption by increments. If such legislation were to pass, it would allow public officials to openly engage in red-envelope payments, gift-taking, favoritism and bribery below the NT$50,000 threshold without fear of criminal liability. At that point, administrative procurements, contract awards, public convenience measures, neighborhood chief subsidies and disaster-relief resource allocations across the system could become hotbeds of dubious, yet consequence-free, transactions. The cost would ultimately be borne by social fairness and public trust as a whole.
Even more troubling is who gets to decide what constitutes “minor circumstances.” Leaving such a vague term to the discretion of prosecutors or judges would only lead to greater consumption of judicial resources and create opportunities for influence peddling and political interference. At a time when society is striving to promote transparent governance and integrity in public administration, Weng is actively attempting to undermine the Anti-Corruption Act under the guise of protecting ordinary workers. In reality, it is not workers like Huang who are being protected here; it is local politicians and power networks operating in gray areas.
Of course, disproportionate prosecutions or verdicts should be conscientiously reviewed. The legal sphere should be encouraged to return to a framework that first establishes guilt, and then considers the motive and circumstances, while still safeguarding institutional integrity. The rice cooker case calls for a good-faith reflection on whether the judge lacked flexibility in applying the law and whether prosecutors abused their power. However, it does not mean that the legislature should throw the baby out with the bathwater and undermine the entire anti-corruption legal framework. Especially in Taiwan, where local factions are deeply entrenched and money and power are tightly intertwined, a blanket rule against punishment for cases under NT$50,000 is not protection for frontline workers, but a get-out-of-jail-free card for systemic corruption.
True reform would not abandon all principles, but demand that the judiciary respond to the genuine human realities of individual cases and apply proportionality in adjudication. Issues should be corrected through institutional means, not by allowing moral standards to collapse across the board.
Faced with Weng’s proposal to exempt minor offenses, we must ask: If it is NT$50,000 today, would it be NT$100,000 tomorrow? We must be careful in drawing these lines. What Taiwan needs is a clean government, not politicians with silver tongues.
Elliot Yao is a reviewer.
Translated by Gilda Knox Streader
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