The Ministry of Justice’s power games continue unabated.
Yesterday, this newspaper ran a story on a proposed amendment to the Criminal Code that would allow judges and prosecutors to punish defendants, lawyers, reporters, activists and any other people who publicize evidence or case details in a manner that upsets the court. Other behavior in or out of court that “disobeys the orders” of the court in the eyes of judges would also be dealt with severely.
The main problem with these changes is that they are impossibly vague, which is sure evidence that they are a kneejerk response from prosecutorial officials who suffered professional humiliation during the debacle-ridden trials of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
There is no question that reform of how the media deal with the courts is warranted. Unfortunately, the ministry and the drafter(s) of the proposed amendment are exploiting a system in flux and a souring institutional reputation to crack down on one side. The bias this reflects is distressing for anyone who hoped for a legal system that placed propriety before political meddling.
The ministry’s justification for this attempted change is impossibly superficial. It is not about the law and how it determines guilt or innocence, but about preventing the impression that the court “indulges madness.”
The result will be a chilling effect on the activities of lawyers as they set about defending their clients and on reporters and activists who attempt to expose judicial abuses and illegalities. The new court environment would resemble the bad old days of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rule, in which judges took their orders from above as necessary and issued orders below, and defendants had precious little advocacy and were routinely framed.
Only a decade after defense attorneys were granted the power to cross-examine witnesses, this proposed amendment stands as a political counterattack launched against reform in general, as well as against irritants who have exposed the lack of accountability of judges who break the law by denying suspects due process in court, and of prosecutors who habitually leak evidence to damage the standing of defendants.
We are led to believe, if this amendment is passed, that the material many prosecutors use to defame suspects through leaks to pliant media outlets cannot be held to account by legal teams defending their clients — at risk of prosecution by the same people who leaked the information.
Under Minister Wang Ching-feng (王清峰), the ministry has ignored its responsibility to uphold the integrity of the judicial system as a whole and has blocked or stalled essential reforms. In this context, the proposed amendment is an unwitting indictment of the sleazy coalition of bureaucrats, prosecutors and judges who back it, and marks a possible new stage in the degradation of the nation’s judicial system.
If granted these new, vague powers, certain prosecutors and judges will crack down on aggressive defense teams for no other reason than to make their jobs easier and keep dissident opinion in its place. Inevitably, they will also seek to intimidate, silence and/or punish people who champion reform of this increasingly maladroit institution.
This pathetic minister must be thrown out. It appears, however, that the old-school forces she represents or tolerates are formidable and shaping for a fight.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they
RSS