Beyond "Adjudication According to Law" in the Detention of Ch'ang Te-cheng

Photo source / Presidential Office

Should Ch'ang Te-cheng be detained for ramming his truck into the Presidential Office? The legal requirements have been extensively discussed, specifically: Given his fractured bones, is he capable of fleeing to justify "detention based on flight risk"? Even if he chose to strike at dawn when crowds were sparser, did he still possess the intent to kill, thereby justifying "detention for serious crimes involving attempted murder"? Furthermore, even if attempted murder is established, is there a "risk of reoffending" that warrants "preventive detention"? Other considerations are usually excluded to demonstrate the "rationality" of the law.

In particular, Taiwan's judiciary places a high value on "formality" and takes "adjudication according to law" as its guiding principle, strictly excluding unrelated matters outside of legal requirements from discussion. In fact, this is a classic contemporary jurisprudence debate over whether "law" and "morality" should be conflated. Earlier views held that moral or ethical judgments outside the law should be excluded from legal application. The emerging consensus now, however, is that such exclusions are merely self-deceptive. Social facts have their own contexts; judges cannot make decisions in a "vacuum of neutrality" devoid of any value stance. To claim one is decontextualized and neutral is nothing more than building castles in the air. Instead, it is far better to thoughtfully reflect upon the context of social facts within individual cases and explicitly account for one's value stances.

The Social Context of the Ramming Incident

Ch'ang's ramming of the Presidential Office involves several important social contexts that the judiciary has intentionally or unintentionally ignored. First, the Presidential Office is the symbol of the highest executive power and even the nation itself; "ramming the Presidential Office" inherently carries high political significance. Ch'ang may have chosen the Presidential Office due to its straight roads, ease of acceleration, and the achievability of his goal, but the act itself is an expression of highly political speech. Freedom of speech, presidential security, social stability, and national image are all important values that must be weighed.

Second, we must consider Ch'ang Te-cheng's social class and psychological origins. Ch'ang is a gravel truck driver and a member of the working class, typically burdened with negative social stereotypes such as having a low level of education and being incapable of rational dialogue. Of course, the working class also possesses positive traits, such as being straightforward, passionate, emotional, and unpretentious. The main reasons for ramming the Presidential Office were marital discord, a belief that the judiciary was unfair in an injury case, and disillusionment with politics. Given that the judicial community—represented by the President of the Judicial Yuan—generally holds that the judge's verdict in the injury case contained no apparent flaws, Ch'ang is easily cast as an irrational, uneducated commoner. Consequently, his ramming act is deemed irrational, and the failure of institutional channels to respond—their inadequacy or time-consuming nature—is magnified and dismissed without proper discussion.

Therefore, Ch'ang's excessively straightforward expectations of the judiciary and his passionate trust in politicians led by the President are overlooked, erasing his positive traits. At the same time, the judiciary continuously shapes, conveys, and broadcasts an image of being selfless, omniscient, omnipotent, and demanding public trust that "the judiciary is like Justice Pao" (a legendary upright official). Coupled with politicians' penchant for acting as benevolent parental figures to the people and casually offering quick fixes for all sorts of difficult problems, this may lead to the public's blind faith and excessive trust. Yet, these actors bear no accountability for empty boasts or writing check promises they cannot cash, while the public is easily mocked, sneered at, or dismissed by judges and prosecutors who fancy themselves symbols of rationality. In short: whoever rams takes the blame, whoever is deemed irrational takes the blame, whoever bears responsibility takes the blame—and they bear the full brunt of it all.

The Unstated Values of Judges

Regarding the collective background of judges, first, district court judges are generally younger, while high court judges are older. Different generations harbor varying degrees of tolerance toward the challenge to authority symbolized by the ramming of the Presidential Office. Such disparate fundamental feelings and stances inevitably lead to an unavoidable, preconceived, generalized intuition regarding whether the incident is "serious or not."

Put simply, judges who grew up watching the unchallengeable images of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo will naturally feel differently about a "challenge to the Presidential Office" compared to judges who, coming of age from Lee Teng-hui onwards through Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou, view heckling the president as an everyday occurrence. Furthermore, it must be admitted that the two generations of judges also differ in their strict adherence to legal requirements. As legal academia diversifies, the younger generation of judges is increasingly willing to embrace legal interpretations centered on human rights protection and the rule of law. They are increasingly intolerant of senior judges who remain confined to old-era views or excessively stretch the interpretation of legal elements. Meanwhile, judicial independence is gradually being respected and established; the notion that lower-level authorities must unconditionally submit to the opinions of superior organs is progressively being discarded. This ultimately led to the deadlock where the district court insisted on releasing the defendant, while the high court insisted on detaining them.

Values and Context Shape Legal Requirements

These social contexts and the unstated stances of judges inevitably influence, to varying degrees, the decision to detain. Naturally, under the demand of "adjudication according to law," these factors are never plastered crudely into the text of a ruling. At best, they appear fleetingly or transform into intuitive assessments of gravity when applying legal requirements that defy verbal articulation. For instance, holding that Ch'ang Te-cheng is not a rational person and therefore poses a "flight risk" or "risk of reoffending." Alternatively, viewing the ramming of the Presidential Office as a threat to presidential security and national and social stability—a challenge to the president and a provocation against the state that is gravely serious and therefore undoubtedly a "serious crime." Despite resulting in no fatalities, his subjective "malice is severe," constituting "intent to kill" as a matter of course. Daring to challenge the state, society, and the president—things ordinary people wouldn't even dare to imagine—shows he is simply "too daring," meaning he must also "dare" to commit murder.

When Will Taiwan's Judiciary Reach the Stage Where "Mountains Are Once Again Mountains"?

When contemporary jurisprudence first strictly distinguished "law" from "morality," it was because early legal arguments too easily degenerated into personal moral disputes, and over time, the morals of the powerful and the majority would completely triumph. Distinguishing the two carried considerable persuasiveness—this is the stage where "mountains are not mountains."

However, subsequent revisions and reflections suggest that the feelings and judgments of judges are inevitable, which is precisely why the judiciary relies on "human beings" to render judgments. It is precisely because these subtle nuances cannot be exhausted by the text of legal requirements that we must rely on "humans" to understand "social contexts" and make judgments that are compassionate, reasonable, lawful, and forward-looking.

In this detention case, if we ask why the high court judges deserve condemnation while the district court judges are worthy of praise, it is primarily because the district court judges were willing to strictly uphold the conviction of the rule of law. In particular, the High Court arbitrarily expanded "attempted murder" as a charge for "preventive detention"—a provision entirely absent from the law. "In order to detain him," the High Court transcended the law and infringed upon personal liberty without hesitation. These outcomes reflect a weak human rights awareness and an overwhelming emphasis on balancing the Presidential Office as a national symbol; the High Court's ruling showed more consideration for the state than for the people. This is a value choice that will face greater or lesser criticism and questioning depending on the overall societal level of human rights awareness.

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Influenced by their own values, High Court judges substantively disregarded legal requirements to illegally create new grounds for detention, while procedurally hiding behind their status as an appellate court to shirk responsibility, attempting to accomplish their own will and judgment through the hands of a lower court while refusing to bear the accountability. The judges of the Taipei District Court are praiseworthy because they not only defended the bottom line of the rule of law but also resisted pressure from the bureaucratic hierarchy. Of course, it is also possible that upon seeing Ch'ang Te-cheng firsthand—suffering from fractures and pneumothorax, requiring twenty-four-hour care—they realized that throwing him into a detention center might cost him his life.

Whether driven by the conscience-stricken demands of compassion or the fear of public backlash and personal liability, these subtle recesses of Taiwanese judges' hearts are still not permitted to be seen. We look forward to a judiciary where "mountains are once again mountains," one that can tangibly manifest this in judicial processes and rulings, for these are the warmest and most humane aspects of the judiciary.