On Tuesday last week, the Taipei District Court announced its verdict in the corruption trial of former legislator and Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世).
The court found Lin not guilty on all charges of corruption filed against him by the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID). The only corruption-related offense Lin was found guilty of was failing, as a public official, to account for the source of an increase in his personal wealth. It made Lin the first person to be found guilty of this offense in Taiwan.
In April 2009, the legislature amended the Anti-Corruption Act (貪汙治罪條例), adding Article 6-1. This article stipulates that when public officials’ wealth is found to have increased in a way that is inconsistent with their normal income, they are obliged to account for the anomaly. If they refuse to account for it, give a false account or are unable to provide a credible explanation, they can be handed a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
The purpose of this provision is to prevent and fight corruption by penalizing perpetrators at an early stage. However, the wording of this article is such that only defendants suspected of an offense under the Anti-Corruption Act are obliged to give an account of inconsistent increases in their personal wealth and it is up to prosecutors to decide whether the defendant has to provide an explanation. Under such circumstances, it is hard to avoid having situations in which suspects are treated differently depending on who is involved.
In November 2011, the legislature sought to resolve this problem by further amending the law. Besides raising the legally prescribed penalty from three years in prison to five, the amendment extended the range of people to whom the act applies to include not just those charged with corruption, but also those accused of gaining from illegal activities such as prostitution, pornography, gambling, organized crime, human trafficking, narcotics, smuggling and firearms.
Paragraph 10 of Article 6-1 of the act makes it clear that a public officials who abuses “the power given by one’s official position, the opportunities and means thereof” to commit a criminal offense and whose wealth is found to be inconsistent with their normal income are obliged to explain the anomaly.
However, although the range of situations covered by the act has been extended, whether anything will be done still depends on prosecutors’ willingness to investigate. In other words, when a serious incident of corruption is discovered and a public official is required to explain the source of his or her personal wealth, prosecutors may ignore the felonies that lie behind the anomaly and merely charge the person with having assets that cannot be accounted for. The Lin case shows exactly how this kind of situation can happen.
The SID has long known from its investigations that the amount of money involved in Lin’s case is much more than the NT$63 million (US$2.13 million) he has admitted to having. Prosecutors should try to find out whether this unaccounted-for money is unlawful income derived from other activities.
However, the court, failing to recognize the characteristics of this kind of crime, did not instruct prosecutors to investigate whether other, even more serious offenses had been committed. Instead, it handled Lin’s case merely in terms of the possession of unaccounted-for assets.
This not only let the defendant get away with a relatively light sentence, but it also allowed the charge to function as a shield that lets officials evade the more serious charge of corruption.
The verdict in the Lin case sets a legal precedent that Taiwan would be better off without.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate professor in the Department of Law at Aletheia University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry