Kaohsiung City Council speaker-elect Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄) and his wife Wu Der-mei (吳德美) have been detained since the Kaohsiung council speakership election scandal erupted. Many councilors have confessed, in exchange for a suspension of indictment, to accepting bribes. The details of the whole scandal appear as thought they are about to be revealed.
But it would be extremely odd if only Chu were punished while most of the bribed councilors and the vice chairman-elect were granted suspended indictments. Can the graft problem be solved by getting rid of Chu alone? What if Chu's vacant post is filled by the vice speaker, his campaign partner? Many councilors face the prospect of expulsion by their political parties, which will turn the council into a haven for the "tainted" independent councilors. It seems set to become a council laden with problems.
Buying votes to get elected as councilors, city mayors, county commissioners, National Assembly members, lawmakers and even Control Yuan members is a practice that originated under the martial law era of the KMT. It remains the biggest stain on Taiwan's democracy. Although Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) has ordered strict enforcement of the law, this filthy, pernicious practice is yet to be eliminated and continues to undermine the development of democracy.
What's worse, those involved in bribery -- including those who sell and buy votes, "vote captains" and political party workers who assist in the taking of bribes -- have been breaking the law for a long time. Bribing to get elected is tantamount to usurping official positions. It is the epitome of depravity and brazenness. But there are a large number of people willing to engage in it, who have the potential to erode social values substantially.
Corruptly elected officials always flatly deny their wrongdoing before the scandal is exposed or even before their convictions are confirmed. Sometimes they go so far as to claim that they are victims of political persecution as if pointing at a black kettle and saying that it is white. The most basic principles distinguishing good from evil nearly vanish under the manipulation of these base villains.
To monopolize political power over a long period of time, the KMT turned a blind eye to vote-buying, allowing it to become an insidious but established political practice. In the past, KMT leaders had no intention of eliminating the practice, which endangered the nation's democratic development. They even relied on "black gold" to prolong their grip on power. A handful of DPP politicians keep "nominal" party members (
The bribery scandal in Kaohsiung may be just the tip of the iceberg. To take advantage of popular support to mete out harsh punishments to those involved is certainly worthy of acclaim. But the comprehensive elimination of graft, it seems, will require further, persistent efforts at reform.
Bribery scandals of this sort have come to light frequently over the years, but investigators and the judiciary have seldom had the authority to administer effective punishments. The main reason for this is that the judiciary was not independent and its operations were controlled by one party. Under KMT rule, especially during its last few years, the government did not hesitate to deal with major vote-buying cases but achieved only limited results. The recent announcement of the verdict in the bribery case involving the 1994 Taoyuan County Council speakership election is a perfect case in point.
At present, the judiciary is still restricted in terms of its systems and its efficiency, however. In other words, the existing judicial system has not seen any fundamental change even under DPP rule. In contrast, prosecutors and investigators perhaps face greater changes since they fall within the jurisdiction of the Cabinet under the Ministry of Justice, which appears to have adopted a relatively active approach to cracking down on "black gold." But the ministry, including the minister, is not entitled to interfere.
The Kaohsiung case will be a test of whether the prosecution, investigation and judicial systems can operate effectively without political influence.
This does not mean, however, that the party-government machine, so dominant in the past, cannot exercise any influence on judicial operations or systems. When reviewing the budget of the Judicial Yuan, the Legislative Yuan demanded that the Judicial Yuan press local courts to speed up trials. At the same time, lawmakers applied pressure by threatening to cut some of the Judicial Yuan's budgets.
What's worse is that, to deal with the Kaohsiung scandal, the KMT decided to launch a drive to recall the speaker-elect, only to discover that that tactic is illegal. The KMT's legislative caucus then tried to push for amendments by hijacking reviews of budget proposals. The purpose was merely to serve the party's interests, not to uphold justice. Fortunately, under the pressure of public opinion, the KMT did not achieve its ends.
The scandal in Kaohsiung might lead to radical developments in the evolution of Taiwan's democracy. But if it turns out to be a case of much said with little done after a drawn-out probe wherein the prime suspects get off scot-free or receive only light punishments, then the current investigation and media clamor will be shown to have been in vain. That will prove that the nation's courts are outdated and in dire need of improvement.
Chiu Hei-yuan is a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology of Academia Sinica.
Translated by Jackie Lin
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