The Ministry of Justice yesterday confirmed that the controversial Act for the Control and Punish-ment of Banditry (懲治盜-穇屭?, better known as the "Bandit law," is soon to be abolished.
The decision was made at a special cross-ministerial meeting coordinated by the justice ministry yesterday.
Before abolishing the act, the ministry is to incorporate some elements of the law into other sections of the Criminal Code, according to officials at the ministry's department of prosecutorial affairs.
Before making the decision, the officials said, the ministry consulted the Judicial Yuan, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of National Defense, among others, about abolishing the act.
The defense ministry had apparently emphasized the need to retain provisions of the act covering forcible occupation of military areas and stealing or destroying military assets.
Many legal experts have argued that the law, enacted in 1944 during the civil war in China, lapsed a long time ago.
They cite a sunset clause that requires an annual renewal to keep the law in effect.
Since then, the law has not been renewed on several occasions, with the first lapse taking place in 1945.
Human rights activists have also lobbied for the act's abolishment, pointing out that some of its provisions violate universal human rights.
Probably the most controversial aspect of the act is that many of the crimes punishable under it carry mandatory death sen-tences, and yet so much of the criteria for prosecution under the act is wide-ranging and vague.
The act jumped back into the public's consciousness recently with the execution of eight death row prisoners who were convicted under it. The executions, which took place on Oct. 7, included the notorious kidnapper, murderer and rapist Chen Chin-hsing (3窄i?).
The only ones left who have been charged under the act but not yet executed are the famous Hsichih Trio.
The three accused in the Hsichih Trio case -- which is believed to be seriously flawed by human rights groups because their convictions were obtained on the basis of confessions which the accused men said were extracted under torture -- were given mandatory death sentences under the act eight years ago.
However, Su Chien-ho (蘇建和), Liu Bin-lang (劉秉-|),and Chuang Lin-hsun (2曭L勳) have been spared to this day due to the justice minister's reluctance to sign their death warrant.
Execution under the act has been a thorny issue for the justice ministry.
In August, the Council of Grand Justices, Taiwan's constitutional review authority, rejected an appeal for a reinterpretation of the validity of the bandit law, referring disputes over its validity to the legislature.
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