The "Minor" and the "Major" in the Judicial System

I first met Granny Mei about a year ago. At that time, Granny Mei looked a bit plump. Although her hair was gray and white and she had lost her teeth, her mental state seemed quite good. The social worker who accompanied Granny Mei helped her write a petition and told us Granny Mei's story.

Granny Mei is from Jiangxi, China. After her first husband passed away, she remarried an old veteran in Taiwan named Lao Chang, and came to Taiwan in 2004. Granny Mei and Lao Chang depended on each other, living together in a shabby little house in Jinguashih for five years, and Granny Mei intended to put down roots in Taiwan. However, just as Granny Mei was about to obtain her ID card¹, Lao Chang passed away...

The end of Lao Chang's life was the beginning of all disasters for Granny Mei. A man named A-hung claimed to be Lao Chang's son and tried to drive Granny Mei out of the tiny home she and Lao Chang had shared—her only place in Taiwan. During Lao Chang's lifetime, Granny Mei had indeed heard that Lao Chang had a son, but Lao Chang repeatedly assured her that A-hung was not his biological child. It was not until A-hung tried to drive Granny Mei out of her home that she inquired everywhere among local elders and subsequently learned about A-hung's background...

Before marrying Granny Mei, Lao Chang had married a woman. This woman could not bear children, so she spent four taels of gold to buy a baby boy (A-hung) from Keelung. After this woman married Lao Chang, perhaps to formally continue the family line, Lao Chang registered A-hung not through adoption, but by acknowledgment as his biological son.

Although Granny Mei repeatedly stated that A-hung was not Lao Chang's biological child, within the legal system, A-hung was Lao Chang's son and also an heir to the inheritance. A-hung drove Granny Mei out and locked the door because he believed he was the true heir to this home. Missing her home, Granny Mei asked the police and village warden for help and cut the lock open instead. Conflicts between the two escalated continuously, eventually leading them to file criminal charges against each other. During the litigation process, all charges against A-hung were given non-prosecution dispositions, but Granny Mei was not so lucky. She was found guilty of embezzlement and false accusation, sentenced to 20 days of detention and 3 months of imprisonment respectively, with 2 years of probation.

For a citizen with an ID card, a 2-year probation might not amount to much. But for a 70-year-old grandmother without an ID card, without a job, and without relatives, this meant facing a desperate situation! As a citizen, if one falls into financial hardship, one can apply for low-income household subsidies; but for a non-citizen, there is simply no way to enjoy these social welfare benefits that everyone takes for granted. The old grandmother has heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and various ailments of the elderly, and needs national health insurance; driven out, the old grandmother needs a place to live; with nothing to eat, the old grandmother also needs three meals a day. Because of her criminal conviction, Granny Mei failed to meet the conditions for obtaining an ID card. Because to become a Taiwanese person, your condition is to be "of good character and without a criminal record"²!

This is why the social worker brought Granny Mei to the JRF. The case hanging over Granny Mei's head prevented her from obtaining an ID card, plunging her life into distress.

The JRF took up Granny Mei's case and found that it was truly a grave miscarriage of justice. The year after Granny Mei's criminal conviction became final, the civil court ruled that A-hung was not Lao Chang's biological son. Furthermore, Granny Mei had originally been convicted of embezzlement because the court held that she had embezzled "a water heater and a washing machine" that should have belonged in common to the other heirs (A-hung). As for the false accusation part, it arose because Granny Mei believed A-hung had repeatedly broken into her home and consequently filed a charge of trespassing; however, because her legal charge was misguided, it turned into a false accusation. Unfortunately, the basis for a conviction of false accusation primarily rests on how the judge interprets Granny Mei's subjective intent in filing a mistaken lawsuit, and the determination of subjective intent is basically left to the judge's free evaluation of evidence, making it impossible to overturn with objective evidence. Therefore, the JRF ultimately filed a motion for retrial on behalf of Granny Mei solely regarding the embezzlement charge.

On July 4, 2014, a hearing was held for Granny Mei's motion for retrial. Seeing Granny Mei again this time, I felt she looked much thinner. Granny Mei told me she had indeed lost more than ten kilograms. She said she had fallen seriously ill a while ago; for some reason, her scalp hurt whenever it was touched, and she coughed incessantly, unable to sleep through the entire night. The moment she closed her eyes, it was like watching a movie, with thoughts of how she would endure her days and how she could possibly survive constantly floating through her mind. Looking at Granny Mei, I truly cannot understand why the people in the judicial system cannot put more care into handling these cases that seem minor but severely impact a person's life!

For this case (embezzlement and false accusation), the prosecutor applied for summary judgment procedure, and within a mere month, without a single court hearing, Granny Mei was inexplicably convicted. Upon receiving the judgment, Granny Mei hurriedly filed an appeal, but the second-instance judge handed Granny Mei a "Motion to Withdraw Appeal" right at the start of the hearing. The case number and name were already filled out on this motion, while circles were drawn on the sections for the applicant and date, prompting Granny Mei to sign and date it. Feeling greatly wronged, Granny Mei stated that she was unwilling to withdraw the appeal; according to Granny Mei, upon hearing this, the judge impatiently said, "Then I won't bother with you!" Naturally, the second-instance court also upheld the guilty verdict of the first instance.

The absurd part is that during the second-instance court hearing, with the help of kind-hearted individuals, Granny Mei sought assistance from the Legal Aid Foundation to file a civil lawsuit against A-hung to confirm that A-hung was not fathered by Lao Chang. Even though the second-instance court clearly knew there might be questions regarding the blood relation between A-hung and Lao Chang, it still rushed to close the case!

Why, why would the court hastily find Granny Mei guilty? Why couldn't it wait for the outcome of the civil judgment? This was clearly the key to determining whether the criminal case was guilty or not! The mindset behind issuing this guilty verdict perhaps begins with the interpretation of the following passage: "The defendant embezzled property belonging to other heirs, undermined the property security of other heirs, and instead of resolving disputes through proper channels, rashly falsely accused other heirs, undermining judicial credibility and infringing upon the rights of other heirs... Having received this lesson, she should know to be vigilant..."

Simply put, the court believed that Granny Mei first embezzled the property of another heir (A-hung) and then used false accusations to drive away other heirs, making it necessary to teach her a lesson. Yet such inheritance disputes are played out every day in Taiwan with numerous lawsuits filed and numerous non-prosecution decisions rendered. Why were others not convicted, while Granny Mei alone was? This forces me to suspect that this is related to Granny Mei's status as a mainland Chinese spouse. Granny Mei's identity is tied to a certain imagination held by Taiwanese people toward mainland spouses: a "mainland chick" marrying an old mainland veteran in Taiwan solely for his property. The old veteran is completely fooled, giving all the property originally intended for his children to the mainland chick. Under this identity imagination, it is not too strange for the court to take this opportunity to teach Granny Mei a lesson.

Come to think of it, such minor discrimination or prejudice is not uncommon in daily life. However, once such minor discrimination or prejudice enters the judicial system, it can lead to severe consequences! The court might feel that, since this is not a big deal anyway, it can just swiftly close the case for the sake of convenience, while also taking the opportunity to teach a small lesson to those "mainland chicks" who try to seize other people's property. Yet they may fail to notice that the judicial system's definition of a person does not stop within the system itself; rather, it may trigger a series of controls and exclusions targeting those defined as deviant! In Granny Mei's case, being sentenced to probation was by no means a temporary suspension of punishment, but an immediate penalty, because she was labeled as "of bad character and having a criminal record," thereby preventing her from obtaining an ID card. And being unable to obtain an ID card meant she could not be included in the social welfare safety net reserved for citizens. For some people, being excluded from the social welfare safety net can mean the difference between life and death!

Notes

1. According to Article 17 of the Act Governing Relations Between People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area implemented on August 14, 2009, those who have resided with relatives for 4 full years may apply for long-term residency, and after 2 full years of long-term residency, they may apply for settlement. Applying for settlement allows one to obtain an ID card. Furthermore, if the relative whom one originally joined passes away during the long-term residency stage, one must complete 4 full years of long-term residency before applying for settlement (see Item 1, Subparagraph 2, Paragraph 1, Article 32 of the Regulations Governing Permission for People of the Mainland Area to Reside with Relatives, Have Long-Term Residency, or Settle in the Taiwan Area). In other words, if Lao Chang had not passed away, Granny Mei could have obtained her ID card in 2010. But because Lao Chang passed away, Granny Mei had to wait another two years to obtain her ID card.
2. See Subparagraph 2, Paragraph 5, Article 17 of the Act Governing Relations Between People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area.