Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) yesterday said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would head a preparatory committee for national affairs conferences on judicial reform to be set up by the office, in an effort to prevent the pending nominations of the Judicial Yuan president and vice president from impeding long-awaited progress toward judicial reform.

“Actually, in addition to serving as convener, [Tsai] will also designate a civil opinion leader to be the deputy convener of the committee, which will consist of legal and non-legal professionals,” Huang said.

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) nominees for Judicial Yuan president and vice president last month faced serious criticism, with many people questioning the candidates’ backgrounds. The government responded by saying “people did as they were told during the Martial Law era.” The statement is neither right nor helpful in defending the candidates.

The truth is, under martial law, most people chose to avoid politics, and preferred not to challenge the authorities. They wanted, after all, to stay out of prison. However, they also wanted to avoid becoming accomplices to injustice or becoming brainwashed.