President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has filed a civil lawsuit against the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its spokesperson, Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑), claiming damages in connection with rumors that Ma had met secretly with a well-known bookmaker. Since DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is her party’s legal representative, Ma is basically suing his main rival in January’s presidential election.
In filing the NT$2 million (US$66,000) lawsuit, Ma has ignored the main party in the affair — Next Magazine, which reported the alleged meeting — choosing instead to sue the DPP for repeating the story. While the lawsuit was clearly a political decision, Ma said that, as president, it would be inappropriate for him to sue a media outlet.
A president or vice president suing the media loses, regardless of the outcome. If Ma were to win the lawsuit, he would be accused of interfering with the judiciary, suppressing the media and indirectly threatening the news media. Then-vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) won a defamation suit against the Journalist (新新聞) magazine in 2004, but it was a tough victory that left Lu bruised and battered. If Ma lost a suit against a media outlet, he would lose face and maybe even his political career, and that is too much of a risk.
Ma has filed a civil lawsuit, rather than a criminal one. The main reason for this was Constitutional Interpretation No. 509, which states that if the accused fails to demonstrate that a defamatory statement is true, they must be found not guilty if they can prove that there are reasonable grounds to believe that it is true. The DPP got its information from Next Magazine, and that would make it very difficult to win a criminal lawsuit against the DPP for defamation.
Had Ma insisted on a criminal lawsuit, the case could have been quickly rejected and he would basically have shot himself in the foot, hobbling his re-election bid. By filing a civil lawsuit, he stands a much greater chance of the court accepting it, and that could constrain the DPP’s attacks over the alleged meeting. It also leaves him with the option of withdrawing the lawsuit if he wants.
During election campaigns, it is common to see rivals, candidates or parties suing each other. However, although Ma claims that this is a private lawsuit, filed in his own name, Ma the private citizen cannot be disentangled from Ma, the president. That the accuser and defendant are election rivals simply raises the stakes. This means the legal proceedings will play out in the public sphere and will be the target of public commentary. It is impossible for the public to view this lawsuit as a purely private affair.
That the DPP has been sued by the president for quoting from a media report to criticize him should rightly send chills through everyone. It is an attack on freedom of expression, and a bad development for Taiwan’s democracy.
Ma has fallen victim to rumor-mongering just as DPP vice presidential candidate Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) did last month, when he filed a lawsuit following accusations that a Taitung County house he owned was illegal. The DPP complained that Ma, as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman and presidential candidate, did nothing to restrain his party members from defaming Su.
If distorting facts to attack opponents is part and parcel of Taiwan’s twisted political culture, then both the pan-blue and pan-green camps have now tasted the same bitter medicine. As aspirants register their candidacies, they should remember not to do unto others what they don’t want to experience themselves. It’s not too late to try positive campaigning.
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