Respect Lee Ming-jer’s Choice

 Respect Lee Ming-jer’s Choice

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

September 12, 2017

 Translation of an Excerpt

The Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court of Hunan Province, China, on September 11^th tried in open court Lee Ming-jer (李明哲), a former DDP party worker, who pleaded guilty during trial to prosecution charges of inciting subversion of state power and expressed remorse for his offenses. Now, because Lee Ming-jer opted to go to the Mainland to create several chat groups on Tencent QQ, an instant messaging software service on the Mainland, and massively circulated articles and statements lambasting the CCP government, advocating a Western-style political system, he has to bear the consequences for his actions.

DPP figures and Lee Ching-yu (李淨瑜), Lee’s wife, cannot use the yardstick of "Civil Code" and the "Code of Criminal Procedure" of the Republic of China on the system of the People's Republic of China, and accuse or condemn the legitimacy or appropriateness of Lee Ming-jer’s trail by the Mainland. The relationship across the Strait is not state-to-state relations; however, in the current stage of mutual non-recognition of each other’s sovereignty, entering areas under the other side’s jurisdiction, people should naturally respect the other side's sovereign consciousness and observe its sovereign acts. Applying the sovereign consciousness observed by the international community, no person, state, or government can solely claim one’s own sovereignty, and not respect the sovereignty of others. Criminal justice systems and government systems are the most concrete forms of sovereignty; intervention in the other side's criminal justice system and non-respect for its government system are intervention in the other side's jurisdiction.

As to Lee Ming-jer’s attitude of pleading guilty in open court, whether it was genuine and factual is not the point. Courts in Taiwan, the UK and the US all accept tactical admissions of guilt on the part of defendants, and do not ask whether it is genuine. Since Lee Ming-jer made his choice, his wife should respect it, and say no more in order not to hamper Lee Ming-je’s intention of pleading guilty.

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