It was announced on Friday that on Jan. 1 the Special Investigation Division (SID) of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office is to be formally abolished and its responsibilities transferred back to prosecutors.
The SID was set up in 2007 by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to investigate large-scale economic crimes, corruption, negligence or activities deemed harmful to social order involving high-level public officials, including the president, vice president or the directors of the five government branches: legislative, executive, judicial, control and examination.
Taiwan is still a young democracy. Its institutions and how they operate are still very much open to abuse and corruption at even the highest levels of government, so it is important to have provisions of some kind to investigate such transgressions.
The problem is that the SID has shown itself unfit for the purpose during its relatively short existence.
It has been involved in a string of controversies and subject to suspicions of not being entirely politically neutral, a quality of paramount importance to a division with the responsibilities and resources the SID has.
Probes into the bribery case involving former Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世) — investigated only after media reported the story — and the corruption probes against Chen — in itself controversial in how they were handled — notwithstanding, the SID has successfully prosecuted surprisingly few cases, considering the rich pickings to be had in Taiwan’s political and business climate. Many of the controversies have been a result of its decisions not to prosecute, which in themselves have left it open to accusations of political bias.
Cynicism greeted its 2014 decision to drop its eight-year investigation into the sale of three broadcasting companies owned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), in sales linked to KMT Central Policy Committee director and party spokesman Alex Tsai (蔡正元) — then president of one of the companies — and former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then-Taipei mayor, to China Times Group subsidiary Jungli Investment Co, allegedly for kickbacks.
There have also been accusations of interference in the political process to the benefit of the governing party, such as the announcement, one month prior to the 2012 presidential election, of its investigation into files relating to Yu Chang Biologics Co, allegedly involving Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). Tsai was defeated in that election.
Finally, there was the SID’s involvement in the so-called “September strife” of 2013, in which it was found to have “mistakenly” wiretapped the Legislative Yuan’s switchboard for a month, with the information obtained directly reported to then-president Ma by then prosecutor-general Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘), leaving the division open to accusations of violating the Communication Security and Surveillance Act (通訊保障及監察法), the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法) and the Civil Servant Service Act (公務人員服務法).
To a degree, the division’s faults are a result of how it was set up. The prosecutor-general, appointed by the president, is authorized to select all the SID’s prosecutors, raising questions about how it could maintain neutrality were a sitting president to be investigated for corruption. In addition, unlike local prosecutors’ offices, which can be supervised by the High Prosecutors’ Office, there are no provisions for oversight of the SID.
Another question is whether there is any need for its existence at all when senior prosecutors could be assigned to district prosecutors’ offices to help handle serious or complicated cases instead.
There have been calls for the abolishment of the SID for years. This announcement has been a long time coming.
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