The Legislative Yuan’s Judiciary and Organic Laws Committee is set to review a proposed amendment to tighten the requirements for a court to order a suspect detained.
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), and fellow TPP legislators Chang Chi-kai (張啓楷) and Chen Gau-tzu (陳昭姿), earlier this week proposed a change to Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) Articles 93 and 101 that would eliminate “risk of colluding with accomplices or witnesses” as a reason to detain someone incommunicado.
Instead, detaining somebody should only be an option when there are no alternative measures and concrete facts already establish the risk of destroying evidence or fleeing, which prosecutors must provide evidence of to the court when requesting detention, the amendment bill said.
Photo: Taipei Times
On Tuesday, the legislature’s Procedure Committee listed the amendment bill on today’s agenda.
No legislators raised an objection during today’s plenary session, sending the bill to the Judiciary and Organic Laws Committee.
The TPP denied it was seeking to protect former party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), currently in detention for almost a year in connection to a corruption investigation, but said it was to protect civil liberties and eliminate coerced confessions.
The Ministry of Justice yesterday held a news conference where it expressed its opposition to the proposal.
In the last four years, nearly 90 percent of suspects detained and held incommunicado in connection to fraud cases were detained on the basis of potential collusion or destruction of evidence, the ministry said.
If this were no longer possible, it would seriously undermine efforts to combat crime, it added.
The legal system should not be dismantled because of individual cases, it said.
This would allow suspects to coerce or bribe witnesses and accomplices, hindering efforts to fight crime, it said.
Fraud rings, organized crime, spies working on behalf of China, child abusers and other criminals would be able to collude with accomplices, harass witnesses and get away with their crimes, the DPP said.
Saber Youth (劍青檢改), a judicial independence advocacy group, yesterday said this move was a step backwards for legal transparency, encourages obstruction and shelters criminal groups.
Passing the amendment would be disastrous for Taiwan’s future, it said.
The number of fraud cases has increased by 3.37 times between 2022 and 2024, from 1,449 cases to 4,883, it said in a statement today.
The majority of those detained are not leaders, but lower-level criminal employees, it said.
Detaining these individuals helps prosecutors dismantle criminal groups, while the TPP’s proposal would allow accomplices to collude, hindering investigations, it added.
Additional reporting by Chen Cheng-yu
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
A Taiwanese academic yesterday said that Chinese Ambassador to Denmark Wang Xuefeng (王雪峰) disrespected Denmark and Japan when he earlier this year allegedly asked Japan’s embassy to make Taiwan’s representatives leave an event in Copenhagen. The Danish-language Berlingske on Sunday reported the incident in an article with the headline “The emperor’s birthday ended in drama in Copenhagen: More conflict may be on the way between Denmark and China.” It said that on Feb. 26, the Japanese embassy in Denmark held an event for Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s birthday, with about 200 guests in attendance, including representatives from Taiwan. After addressing the Japanese hosts, Wang
RSS