Ever since his selection was announced, Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan
As we have noted, all this energy is certainly to be applauded and the goals are of vital importance. There is, nonetheless, the risk of Chen biting off more than he can chew.
His campaign against corruption and organized crime -- the infamous "black gold" nexus -- inevitably triggers memories of two such high-profile campaigns launched by his predecessors.
The first began during the tenure of current Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou
Ma's successor, Liao Cheng-hao
What are the lessons for the new minister? First, he needs to make sure that he continuously receives the strongest possible support from both the president and the premier. In this, his road should be smoother than his predecessors. Although there are certainly some elements of the DPP that might feel the pinch, given the extent to which President Chen Shui-bian
Second, he still needs to be careful in handling the CIB. The assistance of the Presidential Office will inevitably be required if any progress is to be made clearing out that den of snakes, and even then it will likely cost significant political capital.
Minister Chen has put forward two main institutional strategies to implement his plan. The first is the establishment of an anti-corruption bureau. He openly admires Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption, which itself is based on Singapore's Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau. But in both places, the need for such an institution arose because their British-bequeathed common law legal systems did not provide for the concentration of investigative and judicial powers in one set of hands. To address the particular problems of corruption, both governments decided to establish bodies with special powers to fill that gap.
In Taiwan, with its continental legal system, prosecutors already have sufficient powers. That is why Chen's second idea -- the creation of special prosecutors' offices -- is better suited to Taiwan's current needs. The model to follow is not Hong Kong or Singapore, but Italy's "clean hands" campaign, where teams of elite magistrates were given free rein to arrest and try gangsters and corrupt politicians.
We urge Chen to concentrate his energy in this way, and -- for all our sakes -- we wish him the best of luck.
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