On July 2, following four years of legal wrangling, two cases in which former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and others were accused of embezzling special allowance funds ended with not-guilty verdicts, and prosecutors decided not to appeal. On Wednesday, Lu petitioned the Control Yuan to investigate whether the prosecutors who brought the case against her had abused their authority.
The conviction rate for corruption cases in Taiwan has for a long time hovered around 60 percent. Even setting aside the question of whether prosecutors treat cases differently according to political affiliations, the low conviction rate is hard to accept.
Taiwan’s existing laws and regulations for punishing corruption are not very clear, and this makes it hard to prevent the judiciary from handling cases differently depending on the people and circumstances involved. Before leading officials’ special allowance funds were decriminalized, there was no law whatsoever to stipulate how these funds should be used, so they were always reimbursed based on previous practice.
Officials who handled their allowances in this way ran the risk of facing serious corruption charges, while some officials who really did pocket public funds got away with it. The Prosecutor-General ought to ensure that prosecutors interpret all such cases and apply the relevant laws in the same way across the board.
People who are prosecuted in relation to the reimbursement of special allowance funds get saddled with the label of corruption and tied down with litigation that drags on and on. This is especially true when they are found not guilty at the first trial but prosecutors appeal the verdict for no good reason except to save face.
It is a good thing that we now have the Criminal Speedy Trial Act (刑事妥速審判法), Article 9 of which clearly states that, with the exception of three circumstances, if people accused of crimes are found not guilty in the courts of first and second instance, the prosecution may not appeal the case to a third trial. Otherwise, prosecutors would be sure to keep on appealing.
Even when the accused are found not guilty, if they want to bring the prosecutors to account, they face obstacles in pursuing their objectives. Although Article 125 of the Criminal Code makes it a crime for public prosecutors to abuse their authority in arresting or detaining a person, the conditions for bringing such charges against a prosecutor are extremely stringent.
What is more, the power to decide whether such prosecutions can go ahead is also in the hands of prosecutors. Even when an accused person sues prosecutors or lodges an accusation against them, the case inevitably ends up being closed on the grounds that investigations have revealed no criminal acts or that there is not enough evidence. This makes Taiwan’s law against the abuse of authority by prosecutors no more than a scrap of paper.
The fact that about 40 percent of those accused in corruption cases end up being found not guilty suggests that either prosecutors are abusing their authority or they are not doing a good job of presenting evidence. Prosecutors can hardly deny their responsibility. Furthermore, the low conviction rate of around 60 percent is sure to encourage a try-and-see attitude that does not help.
If prosecutors keep defending their actions by claiming that they indicted the officials concerned in accordance with the law, it will not just give people the feeling that they are trying to dodge the blame, but also throw prosecutors’ impartiality even further into doubt than it already is.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate professor in the Department of Law at Aletheia University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
President William Lai (賴清德) recently attended an event in Taipei marking the end of World War II in Europe, emphasizing in his speech: “Using force to invade another country is an unjust act and will ultimately fail.” In just a few words, he captured the core values of the postwar international order and reminded us again: History is not just for reflection, but serves as a warning for the present. From a broad historical perspective, his statement carries weight. For centuries, international relations operated under the law of the jungle — where the strong dominated and the weak were constrained. That
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS