Judicial Yuan Vice President Cheng Chung-mo (城仲模) was the only candidate found to be an inappropriate nominee to the Council of Grand Justices by a civil watchdog group's assessment released yesterday.
"A 15-member committee comprised of legal experts determined that Cheng was incompetent to be a grand justice because of a discrepancy found between his real implementation of human rights issues and the ideal that he claimed to have honored at all times," said Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), executive member of the Taipei Society, who hosted a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The Association Monitoring the Nomination of Grand Justices, comprised of Ku's society, the Judicial Reform Foundation, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and several bar associations, conducted a three-month assessment of the 15 nominees selected by President Chen Shui-bian in May.
The assessments were conducted through interviews with over 200 jurists, legal professors and lawyers, and was necessary to help lawmakers better review the nominations and finalize a confirmation vote by October.
A 15-member committee convened by the monitoring association to finalize the process confirmed Cheng's disqualification.
Over two-thirds of the committee vetoed his nomination after extensive discussion during the evaluation process.
Ku explained that Cheng was criticized for his handling of three capital punishment cases while he served as minister of justice.
The most controversial case involved a prisoner surnamed Chao, who was allegedly executed without the required procedures being followed, Ku said.
Chao was executed on Oct. 20, 1998, one day before his lawyer received the court's verdict, a Control Yuan investigation discovered.
The Control Yuan ruled the execution was a mistake.
The Ministry of Justice was also reprimanded for two other two capital-punishment cases during Cheng's tenure.
"The Control Yuan's verdicts revealed that the grand justice nominee should be challenged for his alleged prioritizing of human rights," Ku said.
He said the Control Yuan verdicts clearly stated that the demand of an ultimate approval by the minister of justice for carrying out the death penalty was legally formulated according to the country's respect for individuals' lives.
"Cheng's misconduct raised our concerns about his competency, since the top priority of grand justices is to protect human rights and the lives of individual citizens," said Wei Chian-feng (魏千峰), chairman of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
"It is unbelievable that a person like Cheng could make such mistakes since he used to do research into the abolishment of the death penalty and even wrote his master's degree dissertation on the subject," Wu said.
Ku said the assessment would be sent to each lawmaker and hopefully would lend a hand in the confirmation of the nominees.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS