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Updated Friday, May 1, 2009 9:09 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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The new cross-strait justice agreement

Chen is believed to have stolen NT$800 million from a group of investors, but is currently contentedly living on the mainland with his wife. Former Kaohsiung Mayor Wang Yu-yun declined to show up in court to answer questions about an illegal loan and also absconded to China. Because these white-collar criminals are unlikely to be directly involved with crime in China, they could sleep easy at night. Until now.

But the opposition DPP has howled “traitor,” even though the pragmatic fruits of Ma's labors are all too visible to the neutral observer. It appears that China has also taken a pragmatic approach, so the agreement on exchanging fugitives looks like a sure thing. The possibility that the public might soon be treated to images of these high-profile lowlifes being escorted in handcuffs back to Taiwan will encourage those who feel that all too often the rich and powerful get away with practically anything.

A more sticky area that needs to be addressed some time in the future is prisoner-exchange issues with other nations. While some might not be aware of the fact, Taiwan currently incarcerates many foreign nationals. There are no official stats on exactly how many foreign nationals are currently being held in local prisons, but like every other place in the world, sometimes visitors do bad things.

Taiwan holds foreign drug offenders, thieves and even murderers. In recent years, many nations have begun signing agreements that allow criminals to serve sentences in their home country. The reasons for this are generally humanitarian. A Canadian imprisoned in Taiwan, for example, has little access to his family and may have few or no friends in Taiwan. Many foreigners are also unable to speak local languages and Taiwan has no funds to provide constant translation.

Laws and agreements on prisoner transfers vary. In some cases, a convict may apply for transfer only after a specified portion of the term has been served. Other restrictions include guarantees that the convict will not be paroled before a certain date. The overall goal of such transfer agreements is to make serving a sentence a little more humane.

Taiwan faces the difficulty of not being recognized as a sovereign state by most United Nations members, and as such, signing agreements can be difficult. But, by using possible repatriation agreements with China as a starting point, the ROC may be able to begin taking steps with other nations as well.

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