Op-Ed | The "NT$32 rice cooker case" Reflects the Ministry of Justice's Sluggish Legislative Amendments

The recent "NT$32 rice cooker case" has sparked heated public debate. Although subsequent discussion questioned whether there was in fact an elderly woman collecting recyclables, one underlying problem remains clear: the statutory penalties under the Anti-Corruption Act, which frequently begin at five years' imprisonment or more, can be excessively harsh in minor cases.

This is far from the first time that similar cases have generated controversy.

In April 2022, President Tsai Ing-wen granted presidential pardons to retired army general Han Yu-ping and army sergeant Chang Yu-sen in a corruption case. Media reports at the time highlighted the controversy over severe punishment for petty corruption and noted that Supreme Court judges had also called on the Ministry of Justice to consider legislative reform. Tsai Ching-hsiang, then Minister of Justice and head of the competent authority responsible for the Anti-Corruption Act, likewise stated that amendments would be studied.

On March 11, 2024, the Ministry of Justice finally announced a draft amendment for public comment. After nearly two years of deliberation, however, its response to the controversy was limited: for cases involving minor circumstances and illicit gains of less than NT$50,000, the current rule allowing a sentence reduction would be changed to allow either a sentence reduction or exemption from punishment. The Ministry submitted the draft amendment to the Executive Yuan on May 31, 2024, but the Executive Yuan did not complete its review until August 15, 2025.

Leaving aside the substance of the proposed amendments, this pace of legislative reform is difficult to justify. Yet at the Ministry of Justice, such delays have become all too familiar.

In 2017, the Supreme Court issued a final criminal judgment against a law-enforcement officer who had used a GPS tracking device during an investigation, bringing the urgent need for a statutory framework governing technology-assisted investigations into public view. Yet the Ministry of Justice did not announce its first draft "Technology Investigation Act" for public comment until September 2020. The framework was not finally enacted until July 2024, when technology-investigation powers were incorporated into the anti-fraud legislative package, principally through new provisions on special compulsory measures in the Code of Criminal Procedure and related amendments.

The reform strongly advocated by victim-support organizations to extend the statute of limitations for prosecuting sexual offenses against children and adolescents followed a similar pattern. In October 2022, the Ministry of Health and Welfare's task force on domestic violence and sexual assault prevention had already resolved to ask the Ministry of Justice to study reform. Yet only after victim advocates repeatedly renewed their calls from 2024 onward did the Ministry of Justice finally announce draft amendments in August 2025.

Examples of this kind are numerous. One need only look at the Public Interest Whistleblower Protection Act, which was debated for roughly a decade and, by the time it was finally enacted in January 2025, had already lagged behind international developments for years.

When was the last time the Ministry of Justice proactively introduced forward-looking legislation with a genuine reform agenda? Has there ever been such an example? What, exactly, is the Ministry of Justice so busy doing?

The legal problems exposed by the "NT$32 rice cooker case" should have been addressed through legislative reform long ago. More importantly, serious and professionally grounded reform should not stop at simply adding the possibility of "exemption from punishment." As criminal law scholars have repeatedly argued, the legislature should undertake a comprehensive review of the excessively severe statutory penalties throughout the Anti-Corruption Act.

The Ministry of Justice's slow pace of reform forces Taiwanese society to spend scarce public attention and institutional resources debating the same problems again and again. Meanwhile, individuals who suffer adverse consequences under poorly designed laws are left to bear the cost themselves.

The true legal dilemma behind the "NT$32 rice cooker case" therefore extends far beyond amendment of the Anti-Corruption Act. The deeper problem is that the Ministry of Justice's sluggish approach to legislative reform is itself obstructing Taiwan's social and legal progress.

The full article was published by Up Media on December 27, 2025.