Self-help? Right to resistance? Privilege?

Scholars in the United States have once conducted research showing that the miscarriage of justice rate in the U.S. judicial system is approximately five per thousand. This means that out of every one thousand people serving prison sentences for a criminal conviction, five are wrongfully accused! In Taiwan, we believe that the miscarriage of justice rate is certainly no lower than that of the U.S., which is why the Judicial Reform Foundation frequently engages in file tracking and individual case relief (especially regarding the death penalty). We know for a fact that there is no infallible judicial trial system in the world that never makes mistakes. Judges are human, not gods, and as long as they are human, they will make mistakes.

When we witness numerous miscarriages of justice caused by judicial errors, we often feel a sense of powerlessness and frequently comfort the parties involved by saying: It is okay, heaven is watching what people do, and having a clear conscience matters most! Therefore, we often see wrongfully convicted parties obediently serving their sentences upon receiving execution notices from prosecutors. Those who are more passive resign themselves to bad luck and completely lose faith in the country's judiciary; those who are more proactive continue to struggle after serving their sentences (petitioning the Control Yuan or applying to the Prosecutor-General for extraordinary appeals), striving to clear their names for a lifetime. Of course, we also see that some individuals refuse to accept the judgment and go on the run or into hiding. However, we have never seen any such individual, after running away, use spokespersons to hold press conferences telling the public that they are not fleeing from justice, but rather engaging in self-help and exercising the "right to resistance"!

The so-called "right to resistance" in academic theory truly refers to the right of the people to resist when rulers infringe upon and suppress their human rights through unjust laws. This right is derived from natural law and has previously been explicitly stipulated in the constitutions of countries such as France and Germany. However, in modern democratic states governed by the rule of law designed strictly upon the separation of powers, fundamental human rights are already guaranteed by the constitution, and the government must also administer the law accordingly, making it truly difficult to imagine any room for exercising the right to resistance. Consequently, Western countries have recently revised their views to treat the "right to resistance" solely as an "emergency right to maintain or restore the legal order." Its conditions for implementation require that the illegal act which the right to resistance seeks to eliminate must be overtly apparent, and in order to eliminate this illegality, no other foreseeable and effective legal remedies are available for use. Only then may the right to resistance be invoked as a last resort to maintain or restore the legal order (please refer to Yu Ch'ing's "On the Right to Resistance," 1979).

From this, we can see that when Madame Wu Te-mei and daughter Miss Chu T'ing-shan—the wife and daughter of Mr. Chu An-hsiung—use the term "right to resistance," it is truly a heavy burden to bear!

However, the problem we see is not a mismatch of concepts or the abuse of terminology; unfortunately, what we see once again is "privilege."

For the average citizen, following Chu Wan-ch'ing and Wu Tse-yuan, witnessing once more so-called elites acting with impunity—a heavy blow striking straight at the heart of the judiciary—forces people to lament: This is truly an unjust and unrighteous society! For us, the most serious problem is this: when facing a wrongfully convicted person who has no money, no power, and cannot hold press conferences, how can we comfort them by saying: It is okay, heaven is watching what people do, and having a clear conscience matters most?

Miss Chu T'ing-shan said it well: Have those who believe Mr. Chu An-hsiung is guilty actually read the judgment? We admit that we have not studied this judgment, and based on what was stated earlier in this article, we do not rule out the possibility that Mr. Chu's judgment contains errors. However, our main point is that when an individual faces a judgment they believe is unjust, they must never resort to running away using resources ordinary people do not possess, and then utilize media access privileges unavailable to the general public to broadcast to society: I am exercising the right to resistance!

The Judicial Reform Foundation styles itself as the vanguard of judicial "reform" rather than the Red Guards of judicial "revolution." We believe that as long as judgments are rendered in accordance with legal procedures, no matter how unfair or unrighteous the reasoning may seem, one should never use their feet to conduct so-called "self-help." Our approach to erroneous judgments has always been to rally a group of enthusiastic and conscientious people to jointly conduct judgment evaluations, meticulously listing out point by point why a judgment is wrong, and striving to draw public attention so that the public can make a fair appraisal. This is the only thing we can do for ordinary people who have no money and no power.

Contrasting this disorienting time and space where elites act with impunity, many people with no money and no power are still fighting against judicial miscarriages of justice. We will not encourage them to escape prison or run away to engage in "self-help"; rather, we believe that "virtue is not left to stand alone; who practices it will have neighbors," and we will certainly be able to rally capable and conscientious people to seek exoneration for them. Therefore, while Hsu Tzi-chiang is still fighting for his life in death row, we want to make an appeal to Speaker Chu: Stop engaging in self-help! If you believe the judgment is unfair, why not try letting your judgment undergo third-party relief (evaluation)?

※ Published in: Liberty Times