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CRIMES COMMITTED IN MAINLAND CHINA PUNISHABLE UNDER ROC LAW
Whether acts committed in Mainland China which are criminal offences under ROC law are sanctionable under the ROC Criminal Code is a highly controversial issue. In a case of fraud allegedly committed in Mainland China by an ROC citizen, the Shihlin District Court, in 1997, and the Taiwan High Court at appeal, in 1999, each found the accused not guilty, mainly on the grounds that although the ROC claims sover-eignty over the Mainland China, it is an unde-niable fact that the area of Mainland China is governed by another political entity, the People's Republic of China, and that de facto, the ROC sovereignty does not extend to the Mainland China; therefore, offences committed on there must be regarded as offences committed outside the ROC territory, and only those attracting a minimum sentence of three years' imprisonment or above are punishable under ROC law.
The Prosecutor General of the Prosecutors Office of the Supreme Court brought an extraordinary appeal against the above acquittals, on which the Supreme Court recently ruled. In its judgment, the Court stated that the ROC Constitution, the Additional Articles to the Constitution, and the Statute Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, all explicitly provide that the Mainland China re-mains part of the ROC territory. The ROC has never renounced its sovereignty over the Mainland China. Therefore, although practical obstacles prevent the ROC from exercising that sovereignty at present, criminal offences com-mitted in Mainland China are nonetheless sub-ject to penalty under the ROC law.
From the Supreme Court ruling, it would appear that the question of whether infringements of copyright, trademarks, patents and other intel-lectual property rights committed in Mainland China can be prosecuted in Taiwan under the ROC Copyright Law, Trademark Law, Patent Law and other IPR-related laws, will be worth watching in future as a controversial issue of court practice.