On March 15, the Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu gave a report on the status of Taiwan’s promotion of national human rights in a cabinet meeting. The report accidently reignited the controversy over Taiwan’s adultery law. During the meeting, the Minister of Culture, Lung Ying-tai, suggested decriminalizing the law, saying she was embarrassed by the island’s adultery law when talking with foreigners. She believes the law is “not democratic enough,” according to theLiberty Times.
Later in an interview, Lung said, “It is a different era now. It is absurd that marriage should still rely on the support of judges, police officers and detectives.”
Taiwan’s feminist groups have long been concerned about the criminalization of adultery, with plenty of women for and against. Lung supports repealing the law, while Tseng supports the status quo.
The Taipei-based China Times reported that in the cabinet members’ heated debate, Premier Jiang Yi-huah said the government’s role is to lead the country forward and not to be satisfied with the status quo. The government should weigh the opinions of legal scholars, experts and people from all walks of life, so it can work harder in the interests of all parties. However, he did not express his position on the issue of decriminalizing adultery.
The United States and most EU countries have abolished the crime of adultery. Japan has decriminalized it. China does not list adultery as a crime. Among the major countries, only Taiwan, South Korea, and the Islamic countries, still list adultery as a “criminal offense”.
The 239th article of Taiwan’s criminal code provides that “married spouses who commit adultery be imprisoned for up to one year.”
The United Daily News reported that Lin Jinn-tsun, deputy director of the prosecutorial department of the Ministry of Justice, said there is room for discussing the abolition of adultery as an offense. But speaking from the principle of gender equality, Taiwan punishes persons of either gender without discriminating on sex, race, religion, social class and therefore does not violate the principle of equality of Article 26 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights.
Taiwan’s Justices of the Constitutional Court issued an explanation on adultery constitutionality in 2002 that as the basis of the social formation and development, marriage and the family are guaranteed by the Constitution. Although limiting people’s sexual freedom, the law is aimed at protecting marriage, the family system and social order, and therefore it is not unconstitutional.
Though considered a misdemeanor offense in Taiwan, it is often used as a weapon of “counter attack” by wives to control a cheating husband and his mistress, reported the Taiwan-based China Times. Previous judgments by the courts show that sometimes, a wife will discover her husband having an affair, and submit a suit immediately. Then she will choose to forgive her husband, and withdraw the case, while ultimately insisting on suing the mistress. This is the wife’s way of getting repentance from her husband, but placing the disciplinary penalty on the mistress. The newspaper stressed that adultery as an offense “creates more problems than solutions.”
The United Daily News reported that the Awakening Foundation’s Secretary General Lin Shih-fang indicated that the current laws have become a weapon to punish women while exempting men. Lai Fang-yu, a lawyer and the director of the Modern Women’s Foundation, also said that criminal penalties should not apply to marriage, but rather, the use of higher civil compensation to protect victims.
For example, Lin said, out of the over one thousand cases of adultery brought before local courts in the five years, 1999 to 2005, 50 percent of the wives who accused their husbands of adultery withdrew their cases, but still insisted on filing a suit against the mistress while only 23 percent of the husbands who accused their wives of adultery withdrew the cases. In looking at the data, wives were convicted more than the husbands, showing that Taiwanese society treats men and women differently when it comes to adultery.
“It is better to let the spouse go, rather than spending the time intimidating and punishing the parties involved through the criminal justice system,” said Yao Shu-wen, chair of the Modern Women’s Foundation. She pointed out that feminist groups proposed abolishing the adultery offense ten years ago, adding “the existence of the crime of adultery does not help promote positive feelings among married couples. She urged the people suffering betrayal of their spouse to face reality, and to be happy on their own,” according to the Liberty Times.
Vocabulary:
1. status quo: 現狀
Questions:
1. What is the real value that everyone seek in a relationship? What reason drives you to start a relationship?
2. What is your opinion on the decriminalization of adultery?
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