On Friday last week, Yunlin District Court annulled the election to the legislature of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus secretary-general Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) in the opening trial of a vote-buying case. It is a case that has taken twists and turns.
Chang’s father, Chang Hui-yuan (張輝元), chairman of the Yunlin Irrigation Association, had been detained on suspicion of bribing people to vote for his son, but is now out on bail of NT$10 million (US$300,000). Prosecutors are seeking a 30-year jail term.
The vote-buying in this case was wide-ranging and sophisticated. As many as 15 of the legislator’s vote captains were involved and most of them were found guilty.
On April 19, the day after the court released the elder Chang on bail, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) ran a story entitled “The legal deadline for nullifying Chang Sho-wen’s election result has passed.”
Many readers wrote in to criticize the prosecutors for letting Chang off the hook. In response, the prosecutors argued that it was the father who was accused of vote-buying, not Chang Sho-wen himself, thus nullifying the election was inconsistent with the law.
But now, the court has declared Chang’s election invalid. The verdict shows just how negligent Yunlin’s prosecutors were in handling the case.
Among the 295 legislative candidates who stood for 79 seats in local constituencies, 18 have been charged with criminal offenses related to vote-buying. Of these, six were elected and 12 were not. Prosecutors have launched proceedings against five of the six, calling for their elections to be annulled.
A proposal to amend the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) is on the agenda. The idea is to amend Article 127, which would annul an election after an unsuccessful second appeal instead of after an unsuccessful first appeal, as is the case now.
If the amendment were passed, it would allow elected officials suspected of vote-buying to serve out their terms as their cases drag on from one trial to another. The law as it stands is a thorn in the side of corrupt legislators, with its so-called “blitzkrieg clause” requiring that the verdict after the first appeal be final, and that the duration of each trial be limited to six months.
The effectiveness of the existing law can be seen from the fact that, among officials elected in 2005, 37 city and county councilors have been removed from their posts and replaced by runner-up candidates, while 14 city mayors, county commissioners and township mayors have been dismissed and replaced in by-elections.
If the law is not amended, the 18 legislators and defeated candidates who are facing criminal charges will see their cases move to an appeal. If their convictions are upheld, the unsuccessful candidates will go to prison immediately, while those elected will be removed from their seats and then go to jail.
If the Act is changed so that cases limited to two trials are allowed one more appeal, the example of former Taichung City Council speaker Kuo Yen-sheng (郭晏生), which has dragged on for 13 years after he was accused of irregularities in 1995, will be commonplace. If vote-buying cases against elected officials cannot be resolved within their term of office, there would be little point in investigating anyone.
The Yunlin example shows that prosecutors need more education on probing vote-buying cases. The Ministry of Justice should investigate the handling of the Chang case to see if there is more to it than meets the eye.
Wang Chou-ming is a master’s candidate specializing in corruption studies at the Department of Political Science at Tunghai University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG AND JULIAN CLEGG
The cancelation this week of President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visit to Eswatini, after the Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius revoked overflight permits under Chinese pressure, is one more measure of Taiwan’s shrinking executive diplomatic space. Another channel that deserves attention keeps growing while the first contracts. For several years now, Taipei has been one of Europe’s busiest legislative destinations. Where presidents and foreign ministers cannot land, parliamentarians do — and they do it in rising numbers. The Italian parliament opened the year with its largest bipartisan delegation to Taiwan to date: six Italian deputies and one senator, drawn from six
Recently, Taipei’s streets have been plagued by the bizarre sight of rats running rampant and the city government’s countermeasures have devolved into an anti-intellectual farce. The Taipei Parks and Street Lights Office has attempted to eradicate rats by filling their burrows with polyurethane foam, seeming to believe that rats could not simply dig another path out. Meanwhile, as the nation’s capital slowly deteriorates into a rat hive, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection has proudly pointed to the increase in the number of poisoned rats reported in February and March as a sign of success. When confronted with public concerns over young
Taiwan and India are important partners, yet this reality is increasingly being overshadowed in current debates. At a time when Taiwan-India relations are at a crossroads, with clear potential for deeper engagement and cooperation, the labor agreement signed in February 2024 has become a source of friction. The proposal to bring in 1,000 migrant workers from India is already facing significant resistance, with a petition calling for its “indefinite suspension” garnering more than 40,000 signatures. What should have been a straightforward and practical step forward has instead become controversial. The agreement had the potential to serve as a milestone in
China has long given assurances that it would not interfere in free access to the global commons. As one Ministry of Defense spokesperson put it in 2024, “the Chinese side always respects the freedom of navigation and overflight entitled to countries under international law.” Although these reassurances have always been disingenuous, China’s recent actions display a blatant disregard for these principles. Countries that care about civilian air safety should take note. In April, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) canceled a planned trip to Eswatini for the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s coronation and the 58th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic
RSS