A Faint Warmth

Over the past couple of days, the Judicial Reform Foundation accompanied petitioners to the Control Yuan regarding two cases. One is the well-known Su Ping-k'un case. Upon hearing that this case is not yet over, many people look surprised and ask, "Wasn't he already pardoned by the President? Why is there still an investigation?" Our difficulty lies right here. Is it really "over" just like that? This case forced Su Ping-k'un to flee for eleven years and serve two and a half years in prison, destroying his entire livelihood. Today, he is a "senior middle-aged" man past fifty, often lamenting that his vibrant fighting spirit from his thirties is gone. Does a wise presidential pardon simply wipe away past mistakes? Is this a judiciary that is strict with others yet lenient with itself? No matter how I think about it, I cannot understand.

The other petitioner is the wife of Chang Fang-t'ien. This involves a brutal murder case where the victim was a three- or four-year-old little girl. It sounds like a heinous crime, but just like every story of wrongful accusation, brutal torture and irrelevant evidence ruined yet another family. Originally sentenced to death, through the defense of pro bono lawyers and after several retrials, his sentence was finalized as life imprisonment, and he is currently serving his term. However, the victim's father called the pro bono lawyer and said, "How could the judge say the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because the methods weren't cruel enough? My daughter is dead, what else counts as cruel?!" Chang Fang-t'ien's side also had something to say: "If I did it, I would willingly accept ten death sentences; if I didn't do it, my innocence must be returned to me. What is the meaning of life imprisonment?!" The judiciary is not mathematics; it cannot add up the expectations of both sides and divide by two. Right and wrong—the judiciary has only one line. The incompetence of the judiciary once again pits innocent and unrelated people against each other, and no one can resolve their grievances.

The petitioners in both cases have experienced the process of being wrongfully accused, knowing the helplessness and despair of being wronged. Mr. Su comforted Mrs. Chang in his capacity as someone who had "been through it." Hearing of the same torture and the same perfunctoriness, he wiped away tears repeatedly at emotional moments, as if recalling the hardships of the past decade or more, and as if seeing how his own wife had once bravely fought for his final innocence. But after all, a full pardon absolving all crimes is a one-of-a-kind occurrence, and no one dares to harbor extravagant hopes for another chance in the future.

Stepping out of the gates of the Control Yuan, the two people who needed help the most were eagerly hoping to help each other instead. Their difficult lives had not broken them; rather, they forged a steadfast will amidst adversity. Their opening remarks are always the same: "We haven't read many books and don't understand the law, but why can people be wrongfully accused like this without evidence?" Such a simple question easily strikes us down. Why? To this day, we still cannot understand.

Seeing them walk through the shadows of life yet never forgetting to extend a warm hand, living humbly and sincerely, and doing everything they can to pull others up, I wonder whether the police officers who arrested them to meet quotas, the careless and perfunctory prosecutors, and the judges who sat in court to convict them would feel a tiny pang of heartache because of this humble warmth?

※ Published in: Taiwan Daily