Over the past few months, the Special Investigation Panel that has been investigating allegations of money laundering against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and members of his family has successfully applied to have a series of people taken into custody.
The rank of those detained has risen to include former deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office Ma Yong-cheng (馬永成) and former National Security Council secretary-general Chiou I-jen (邱義仁), and now Chen himself is behind bars. Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) and Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) have also been detained on corruption charges.
The investigations have sometimes been closed and sometimes open, allowing the media to reveal a lot of information about them, while unproved rumors about the cases are circulating everywhere. As a result, more and more people are expressing doubts about the judicial process, and many have accused the prosecution of using pretrial detention as a means to pressure the accused into making confessions.
Times are changing. In the past, pretrial detention was a useful tool in the hands of the prosecution. In recent years, however, the trend in Taiwan has been for the Criminal Procedure Act (刑事訴訟法) to be interpreted in a way that prioritizes the protection of human rights. Are prosecutors clinging to the old way of doing things? There clearly exists a contradiction between the presumption of innocence on the one hand and the system of pretrial detention on the other. This is an issue that can no longer be evaded.
The Judicial Reform Foundation and other civic groups have proposed a list of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act that would serve to promote human rights. The point of the amendments is to confirm that the purpose of pretrial custody is not to help the prosecution expedite indictments.
It is proposed that the maximum time the accused may be detained for the purpose of investigation should be reduced from four months to 20 days, as in Japan. Such a reduction would give adequate protection to the rights of the accused while still providing reasonable time for criminal investigation. In the interest of reviving public confidence in the judicial system, the proposal deserves serious attention.
Lin Feng-cheng is president of the Judicial Reform Foundation and a lawyer.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
RSS