The Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that slander as a punishable crime is constitutional, but its scope should be better defined.
The court heard 31 petitions for constitutional interpretation, including 20 filed by judges who said that slander was not clearly defined in practice and was not in line with the principle of unambiguous law.
Writer Chang Ta-chun (張大春) and media personality Neil Peng (馮光遠) also filed for a constitutional interpretation of slander after they were found guilty by local courts, saying that the rulings infringed on their right to free speech.
Photo: Yang Kuo-wen, Taipei Times
Chang was ordered to pay NT$3,000 for defaming the late pundit Liu Chun-yao (劉駿耀) in 2014 after calling him “shameful,” while Peng was ordered to pay NT$5,000 to former National Security Council secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) in 2015.
Item 1, Article 309 of the Criminal Code states that a person who publicly insults another shall be sentenced to short-term imprisonment or a fine of not more than NT$9,0000. In practice, swear words and comments denigrating others as animals are common.
Meanwhile, Item 2, Article 309 states that a person who by violence commits an offense specified in the preceding paragraph shall be sentenced to imprisonment of not more than one year or a fine of not more than NT$15,000.
The Constitutional Court yesterday said that the law should not consider name-calling during arguments sufficient grounds to sustain defamation and that the environment, context, tone and reason for the argument should be taken into consideration.
The court said that whether one’s speech should be considered slander should be judged on how much it would affect the reputation of the person slandered, and whether said comments were conducive toward public affairs, literary matters or an expression of art, or positively contribute to academia or other professional domains, and whether, in isolated cases, one’s reputation should take precedence over one’s freedom of speech.
Only under such parameters would public slander not go against constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, it added.
Following the Constitutional Court’s interpretation yesterday, lawyers said that it would significantly change the landscape of the judiciary and greatly reduce the number of defamation lawsuits.
During a debate at the Constitutional Court last year, Ministry of Justice representative Kuo Yung-fa (郭永發) said that Article 309 of the Criminal Code was established to uphold people’s reputations, which is considered a basic right guaranteed by the Constitution.
Peng said that his comments, while poignant and acerbic, should be taken as political commentary, adding that Article 309 does not offer protection for commentary that could fit the criteria for slander.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
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The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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