Wandering Court for 30 Years Plus

Last night when I came home, I saw my older son bullying his younger brother. After calling him over and giving him a stern moral lecture, I told him, "Starting tomorrow, if you do this again, I'm confiscating your toys!" I saw him lower his eyelids and meekly submit, but the next second, he slapped his brother across the face: "Wahahaha, today still counts!"

Such infuriating words do not only come from three-year-olds. In Taiwan, if you fight a lawsuit from the first instance all the way to the third instance without giving up, and finally manage to successfully petition the Grand Justices for a constitutional interpretation, you might run into a "delayed-ineffectiveness" clause. This means the Grand Justices declare that the law is bad—truly bad—but that letting it lose effectiveness immediately would create a legal vacuum, so it gets to live a little longer.

Your next question should be: "Since I've fought for so long, surely I can use this interpretation to argue that the law is unconstitutional and that my case was wrongly decided before?"

Sorry, most judges of the Republic of China will give you a familiar answer: "Wahahaha, it's still valid today!"

Some things shouldn't require mastering profound legal theories to understand: a wrong is a wrong. It doesn't become rationalized today just because it won't lose effectiveness until tomorrow. Yet, such a simple truth still required the Grand Justices to specially issue Interpretation No. 725 to tell judges nationwide that "future ineffectiveness does not affect the unconstitutional nature of a statute," that "petitioners may base requests for retrial or other remedies upon it," and that it "allows the cause cases to obtain substantial relief."

The four sets of petitioners who sought Interpretation No. 725 were all heroes—tragic heroes. They had previously overturned unconstitutional laws, but because of the delayed-ineffectiveness clause, they could not enjoy any of the benefits. Among them, the most profoundly tragic and senior cases belonged to the two elderly gentlemen in the "Wandering Court for 30 Years" case. Their lawsuit lasted 27 years before they were finally acquitted, yet their claim for compensation for wrongful detention was rejected. The court held that there was still grave suspicion against them at the time, which justified their detention (even though they were ultimately acquitted!), and thus denied compensation under the Law for Compensation for Wrongful Detention.

The JRF thus organized a legal team and petitioned the Grand Justices for Interpretation No. 670, which declared the relevant provisions of the law unconstitutional. But (and the most formidable part of life is this "but") it would not become ineffective until two years later. Therefore, when we used Interpretation No. 670 to petition for a retrial, it was once again dismissed with a judicial "Wahahaha." We had no choice but to complain to the Grand Justices again, resulting in last week's issuance of Interpretation No. 725—which we might call justice delayed, delayed, and delayed yet again, as this year marks the 34th year of the two elderly gentlemen's battle in the courts. In fact, prior to Interpretation No. 725, there were also a handful of "prophetic" judges who permitted retrials to be initiated under circumstances of delayed ineffectiveness, but such judges were truly hard to come by.

This Grand Justices' interpretation has finally resolved this absurd problem once and for all. Lastly, the first paragraph was actually fictional; the children are not really that infuriating, which is hereby clarified.