Before tendering his resignation, Control Yuan member Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) was planning to question Taipei District Court Judge Tang Yue (唐玥), who acquitted former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of leaking classified information in a wiretapping case during the 2013 “September strife,” to investigate whether judges allowed “free evaluation of evidence through inner conviction” to affect their rulings.
The plan was met with strong backlash from the judiciary, which launched a petition to condemn Chen for interfering with the judiciary.
Chen tendered his resignation on Monday last week and announced three days later that he would step down at the end of the month.
The following day, Judicial Yuan President Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) said that Chen’s action was destroying the rule of law.
Hsu said that judicial independence aims to prevent improper external interference and pressure to ensure that judges remain neutral and above the parties involved, and make rulings that are fair and impartial without having to bend to the will of certain people.
This means not only absence of interference before a ruling is made, but also that a judge not become the target of score-settling after issuing a verdict, he said.
The judiciary prosecutes any contravention of the law committed by any person, and it pays particular attention to evidence. Without evidence, a person cannot be found guilty, even if common sense says that they clearly contravened the law.
Moreover, the judiciary upholds the principle of “presumption of innocence,” which means that judges must consider a suspect innocent before a conviction is affirmed.
These issues do not affect common people, but they are somewhat flawed when dealing with public servants. On the one hand, a case often takes a long time to reach a final ruling, which can cause significant harm to public affairs when the accused is a government employee.
On the other hand, a civil servant could jeopardize others or society with misconduct or delinquency, even without contravening the law.
This is why a more rigorous control power is needed for supervising civil servants.
The Control Yuan is different from the judicial, as it establishes a case through a vote without the need of evidence. It is a kind of political trial designed to promptly remedy harm caused by civil servants’ dereliction of duty.
Even if a civil servant does not break the law, the Control Yuan can punish them for misconduct that could hurt people or society.
In any government, a leader who interferes with the judiciary is viewed as authoritarian. The basic feature of democracies is that no government department interferes in judicial affairs. It goes without saying that the judiciary is professional and independent, and not even a head of state can interfere with it.
The problem is that judicial personnel are civil servants and subject to supervision by the Control Yuan, according to the Constitution. Left unsupervised, judicial personnel are likely to commit delinquencies or misconduct. This led to Chen’s confrontation with the judiciary.
The conflict between the two branches can be easily solved. As the Control Yuan supervises civil servants, judicial personnel are also included in its scope. However, as no one can interfere with a judge’s case, the Control Yuan can only investigate judges’ behavior, but not their cases.
Regular public affairs must be impersonal and only deal with issues, but if the Control Yuan supervises judges, it deals with individuals rather than issues.
Chen Mao-hsiung is a retired professor of National Sun Yat-sen University and chairman of the Society for the Promotion of Taiwanese Security.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
The bird flu outbreak at US dairy farms keeps finding alarming new ways to surprise scientists. Last week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed that H5N1 is spreading not just from birds to herds, but among cows. Meanwhile, media reports say that an unknown number of cows are asymptomatic. Although the risk to humans is still low, it is clear that far more work needs to be done to get a handle on the reach of the virus and how it is being transmitted. That would require the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to get
For the incoming Administration of President-elect William Lai (賴清德), successfully deterring a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attack or invasion of democratic Taiwan over his four-year term would be a clear victory. But it could also be a curse, because during those four years the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will grow far stronger. As such, increased vigilance in Washington and Taipei will be needed to ensure that already multiplying CCP threat trends don’t overwhelm Taiwan, the United States, and their democratic allies. One CCP attempt to overwhelm was announced on April 19, 2024, namely that the PLA had erred in combining major missions
On April 11, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivered a speech at a joint meeting of the US Congress in Washington, in which he said that “China’s current external stance and military actions present an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge … to the peace and stability of the international community.” Kishida emphasized Japan’s role as “the US’ closest ally.” “The international order that the US worked for generations to build is facing new challenges,” Kishida said. “I understand it is a heavy burden to carry such hopes on your shoulders,” he said. “Japan is already standing shoulder to shoulder
Former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) used to push for reforms to protect Taiwan by adopting the “three noes” policy as well as “Taiwanization.” Later, then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) wished to save the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) by pushing for the party’s “localization,” hoping to compete with homegrown political parties as a pro-Taiwan KMT. However, the present-day members of the KMT do not know what they are talking about, and do not heed the two former presidents’ words, so the party has suffered a third consecutive defeat in the January presidential election. Soon after gaining power with the help of the KMT’s