Wild East news staff

The Breakfast Club, a group founded by Professor Jerome Keating that invites scholars to speak and lead discussions on historical issues and current affairs, will be meeting Saturday, June 11, 10 am.

Topic: From the Hsichih Trio to Judge Law Legislation

The meeting is open to all, and likely to draw assorted academics, professionals and visiting scholars.

The invited speaker is Lin Feng-jeng. Lin graduated from the Department of Law, National Taiwan University. He was Chair of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (2000~2003), and Chairman of Radio Taiwan International (2003~2006). He is currently a lawyer of Island Taiwan Law Office and serves as Executive Director of the Judicial Reform Foundation (2007~present).

For the past 20 years, civil society in Taiwan had been working hard to bring about improvements in the judiciary. There are setbacks. Hsichih Trio and Judge Law legislation are two of them.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Hsichih Trio. A murder case in Hsichih in 1991 resulted in the arrest and indictment of three young men, who were subsequently sentenced to death by district court, high court with the death penalty affirmed by the Supreme Court. Executions never take place because the case is marred by allegations of torture on the side of police to obtain torture. In November 2010, they were declared innocent by the High Court. But the Supreme Court overturned this decision and remanded the case to High Court. The retrial proceeding is scheduled to begin in June.

Judge Law legislation has been stalled in the Legislature for the past 20 years. It revived after scandalous revelations last year of bribery cases involving High Court Judges. It is very possible that it will be passed this year. If this draft law is passed, there will be a comprehensive law on judges. But there is a tug-of-war between the Judicial and Executive Yuans and opposition party right now on how outsiders could be involved in evaluating the performance of judges, among other issues.

We also have the recent case of the Air Force private who was tortured to a confession and executed only to find the prosecutors were over-zealous for conviction.

And we have the recent case of Zain Dean. Read more about Dean’s case here and here.

This topic affects all; let me know if you expect to come.
Jerome Keating: jkeating@ms67.hinet.net

The meeting location is the downstairs room of the restaurant 婷婷翠玉 at 174 AnHe Road, Section Two. A rough translation of name is ‘Tender, Pretty Green Jade’. You will be able to tell the restaurant by the lace curtains on the window. There is no cover charge. Breakfast cost will range between NT$100 and NT$150. Everyone buys their own.