Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed bills proposed by opposition lawmakers that would increase legislators’ oversight of the government as thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the venue to protest the changes.

The legislature passed the amendments to the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法) after a day of raucous debates and scuffles between the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which saw one lawmaker’s T-shirt ripped.

Progress on passing revisions to the act had been slow earlier in the day, as the DPP made legislators go through all 77 articles of the act — even those not being changed — as a stalling tactic.

During a Constitutional Court session last month assessing the constitutionality of the death penalty, one grand justice told a Ministry of Justice official that a trial cannot be influenced by public opinion — in other words, a ruling should remain free from public whim.

I have found that views on the matter vary greatly based on a person’s educational background. Those who have received a formal law education in Germany believe that sentencing should be formed independently, both from those in power and the public.

By contrast, those trained in law in the US think that sentencing is inseparable from public opinion, and that all three powers — the executive, legislative and judicial — should yield to the public’s will.