International Law

Taiwan Judges Hopped Up on Goofballs

By Stan

I can’t come up with another satisfactory explanation for this (h/t FP Passport):

Concerned toupee wearers everywhere will be heartened to hear the latest hairpiece news from Taiwan:

A man who tore the wig off a telegenic Taiwan legislator last year was sentenced to five months in jail for depriving the MP of his freedom to look good, a court spokesman said Tuesday.

Chiu Yi is a sometimes-controversial Chinese Nationalist Party politician, known for his many accusations against the opposing Democratic Progressive Party. But freedom of expression took a new form in this case:

“The judge thought Chiu Yi had the freedom to wear what he wanted, and Chiu felt the wig made him look prettier,” court spokesman Huang Chin-ming said. “The judge thinks that to remove it intentionally was to take away that right.”

This opens up entire new legal areas for future consideration:

1. Is it better to look good than to feel good?

2. Does the toupee theory extend to 75-year-old Chinese politicians who have adopted the Ronald Reagan bad-dye-job look?

3. Does liability attach to simple ridicule (as opposed to actually touching an ugly person)? See here for academic support on this issue.

4. Is the “freedom to wear” something that makes you look “prettier” a subjective or objective test? What would a judge think about these guys? Can someone’s “lifestyle choice” effect the outcome?

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on June 10, 2009 (boomark / email).