The most important duty and power of the president in Taiwan is that of nominating people to positions of responsibility. When it comes to nominating members of the Council of Grand Justices, the president nominates an individual and once the nominee is approved, he or she becomes a grand justice.
Once appointed, grand justices are free to perform their duties independently, without any interference from the president. In other words, if the president displays poor judgment in nominating grand justices, it is both a dereliction of duty and it shows incompetence.
We have seen evidence of such poor judgment over the last few days, with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) nomination of Supreme Court Judge Shao Yen-ling (邵燕玲) to one of the four places available on the council. Shao declined the position and an alternative was found in Professor Tang Te-tsung (湯德宗) of National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development. More proof, if any more were needed, of Ma’s incompetence. Incompetence of this caliber would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
Incompetence is one thing, but Ma has another hat to balance on top of his dunce cap. Instead of a big “D”, this one bears a capital “N” for “negligence,” for delegating responsibility and not exercising due care in the nomination process. The first stage in this process is the gathering of information about all the individuals being considered, so that they can be vetted, a process that should be both comprehensive and rigorous, digging into the proposed individuals’ backgrounds and even their finances. Given that, how did the people Ma charged with vetting the candidates for grand justice manage to overlook the fact that Shao was the original “dinosaur” judge?
However, that is not all. The question is whether Ma was unaware, as he claims, that Shao was the judge at the center of the controversy over her ruling in a child rape case? I submit that this claim is false.
On Sept. 25, members of the White Rose movement descended on the Presidential Office in Taipei to protest against what they called “dinosaur” judges. At that time, Ma addressed the crowd, giving them five assurances in an attempt to calm public anger. One of the movement’s instigators, Modern Women’s Foundation executive director Yao Shu-wen (姚淑文) found it difficult to believe that all this slipped Ma’s mind within the space of a mere six months. How could Ma have forgotten an event which he had himself addressed?
For our last witness we would like to call one of Shao’s colleagues, concerning whether on Monday last week, when Ma received Shao, the two discussed the child molestation case in question. Ma has pointed out that they did indeed mention the controversial ruling over the course of their conversation, but that Shao had not specifically said that she was the judge responsible. According to reports, Shao’s colleague contradicts this version of events, saying that both Ma and Judicial Yuan President Rai Hau-min (賴浩敏) were aware of Shao’s ruling on the case and that it had been controversial. Further, the colleague says Shao made this clear to Ma during their March 28 meeting.
The whole event has turned into a Rashomon remake, a fascinating construct of substantially differing, yet equally plausible accounts. The report goes on to say that Shao is not the kind of person who would contradict the president. Indeed, she emerges as the victim here, imprudently nominated, rejected and then framed. No wonder she has been left devastated by the whole sorry affair.
President Ma, you stand accused of incompetence, negligence and distortion of the facts.
Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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