Detaining and Executing Gutter Oil Vendors Brings Only Fleeting Satisfaction

During the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, the moon should be full and the flowers blooming. Yet television and media were flooded with reports of gutter oil. Turning back the clock thirty years, a similar "gutter oil incident" occurred in 1985. It too "shocked society," with the media reporting relentlessly, prosecutors and police launching a blitz investigation, officials vowing strict oversight, and public grievances echoing everywhere. Detaining fourteen people in a single day was astonishing. The methods were draconian and uncompromising, "demonstrating" the government's "resolve." Afterward, the unscrupulous manufacturers were "swiftly tried and sentenced," and the mastermind received a heavy seven-year prison term, seeming to manifest "justice."

Yet thirty years later, the exact same problem arises once more, accompanied by retrogressive rule-of-law rhetoric: "Taiwan is simply too free," or "gutter oil deserves the death penalty." Public safety issues, detentions and convictions, a mindset favoring heavy penalties, and public grievances temporarily subsided—until the problem recurs next time. When on earth will Taiwan escape this "low-level cycle"?

Judges Struggle to Make Immediate Judgments

At the outset of the case, when the mastermind was caught, the prosecutor requested a NT$100,000 bail. Driving a Mercedes-Benz and feigning poverty, he claimed he could not raise the bail. According to media reports, the prosecutor, "in a fit of anger," petitioned the court for detention. Interestingly, after reviewing the case, the judge also deemed detention unnecessary. Since he supposedly had no money, the bail was halved to NT$50,000.

The next day, the media launched a full-scale barrage, decrying the reappearance of "dinosaur judges." Prosecutors allowing unscrupulous manufacturers bail had already sparked criticism, and the judge lowering the bail further was simply "oblivious and provoking public outrage." Under relentless media pursuit, the mastermind was exposed as driving a Mercedes. Daring not to take it lightly, prosecutors continued to investigate his assets and circumstances.

Unexpectedly, the scandal-plagued suspect withdrew all his cash deposits the very next day, handing the prosecution the best possible justification for requesting detention: "withdrawing money in preparation to flee" equates to "flight risk." True to form, the prosecution pressed forward, the court accommodated public opinion, and the mastermind's detention was approved. The media exercised the effects of the "fourth estate," spurring on prosecutors and police, supervising the court, and securing justice for the ordinary citizen.

Comparing this to the swift rhythm of the Changhua District Prosecutors Office in cracking down on Tatung oil, the prosecutors and police may have initially been careless or still investigating, leaving evidence incomplete. The judiciary exercises judicial power passively; if prosecutors and police find no evidence, judges cannot abuse detention. It must be reminded that the prosecutor initially deemed detention unnecessary, and the court reached the same conclusion afterward. One cannot simply hurl abuses at "dinosaur judges" merely because the bail amount was too low.

After all, the amount of bail is judged based on "flight possibility," not solely determined by the severity of the offense. Our country has grown far too accustomed to conflating the two, treating the detention procedure as synonymous with the trial. On one hand, this weakens the effect of the trial; on the other hand, because evidence during detention is often incomplete, a misjudgment leading to detention quickly solidifies the public impression of the defendant's guilt. If the judiciary takes a misstep at the start, self-correction later is difficult, not to mention that the harm to the innocent has already been done. One must exercise extreme caution.

Beware the Passive Facet of the Judiciary

It is not necessarily a bad thing for the media to faithfully perform their duties and assist the judiciary. What requires caution is the judiciary's passive orientation—its effects are negative and its functions limited. We must not treat it as everything, and we must be wary of certain "taken-for-granted" assumptions. Throwing unscrupulous manufacturers into prison swiftly satisfies a sense of revenge or justice. Ultimately, it uses the "creation" of misfortune for the chief culprit to psychologically "balance" out the misfortune "inflicted upon others" by them.

This effect is highly negative. Its function amounts to locking them up, or in China, executing them outright. As the saying goes, while capital crimes have their practitioners, relying on this to deter public safety violations has limited efficacy, provided the business remains "profitable." It would be far better to strike at the root and render such businesses "unprofitable."

Worse still, it produces detrimental side effects. When the government, either to cover up its own dereliction of duty or facing the dilemma of remedial actions, strives to swiftly find a "scapegoat," strong measures and draconian methods gain "incentives and pressures." Every major incident thus easily breaches the boundaries of the rule of law, pushing our standards of rule of law backward once more.

It may even mask or dilute other issues. Assuming we believe that "severely punishing" the mastermind to deter others constitutes the fulfillment of "accountability," we will easily overlook the visible and invisible complicit structures within it. Later, naive legislators and officials will step forward believing that amending laws to increase criminal penalties and raise fines constitutes a "preventative measure," thereby shutting down other "possibilities." These are all the ill fruits of the myth that "harsh times call for heavy codes."