I first met Wang Ping-yun (汪平雲, Vincent Wang) in 2002, while preparing the English translation of the Executive Yuan's White Paper on Human Rights. Our friendship blossomed as we worked together on the "human rights act" (人權法) drafting process. His was the clearest voice in a grueling set of meetings of the drafting subcommittee set up under the Executive Yuan Human Rights Promotion Committee, and he was the most important counterpart for the team of international experts we brought in from the International Commission of Jurists.
From these experiences, I learned how dedicated he was to the true calling of the law -- that it should be an effective shield to protect the people against justice. He never thought of it as merely a mechanism for resolving disputes, much less as a political tool. In that sense, it is unfortunate that he was sometimes described as a "green camp lawyer." As far as I could see, everything he did was for the good of the whole country, especially for the institutions of the law itself, and not for a particular party or politician.
He carried out his mission with the full power of his intellect and tireless effort -- he was perpetually overworked, constantly busy with a bewildering array of projects, each of major national significance. One of the most amazing things about him was that, despite this crushing workload, he was always very considerate, never complaining or taking out his frustrations (and many there were, since the pace of the major reforms he was working on was never fast enough) on the people around him.
I last saw Ping-yun a couple of weeks before he passed away, when we had lunch together. The original purpose of the meeting was that he wanted to tell me about the latest developments with the human rights act (to be transformed into the human rights section of the new constitution), and to share the news about two new pieces of legislation: the implementing act for the International Bill of Rights (國際人權法典) -- the two Covenants still awaiting ratification in the legislature -- as well as the draft refugee law (難民法). He said he hoped very much that, among the various human rights "infrastructure projects" that remain unfinished, at least these two laws could be passed this year.
Luckily for me, he had some time that day, and we ended up having a wide-ranging discussion on a range of issues. We got into a debate about the constitutional interpretation for the "state affairs fund" case. Of course I lost the argument on legal grounds -- being up against one of the brightest legal minds in the country -- but I saw again how he was acting in defense of the Constitution itself, that he felt compelled to do so.
I think the most appropriate way to commemorate Ping-yun is to redouble our efforts to complete his work to achieve some of the major reforms he was planning. In particular, he would be pleased if we could get the ratification of the international bill of rights and its implementation act, as well as the refugee law, enacted this year. Of course, he wouldn't have been satisfied with that alone; he would always have kept striving towards the ideal state of the rule of law. We can honor his memory best by doing the same.
Bo Tedards is a political commentator based in Taipei.
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