It's a widely known fact in Taiwan that corruption and crime are ways of life for many of the public's elected representatives. Even former Minister of Justice Liao Cheng-hao once famously boasted that he knew the names of all the politicians with criminal charges pending against them.
But for the man on the street, Liao's secrets have often been hard to find out -- such as who had been accused of doing what, and how much -- until yesterday, that is.
As part of its pledge to crack down against corruption in the spirit of judicial reform, the Judicial Yuan yesterday released its database of charges brought against elected representatives. It came out to 205 in total.
The politicians on record, including National Assembly deputies, legislators, city and county councilors and township magistrates, have been charged with a variety of offenses, from felonies such as murder and abduction, to misdemeanors such as slander and breach of assembly law.
A majority of the charges relate to corruption, breach of electoral law and abuse of power. Defamation, fraud, and obstruction of voting behavior feature highly, too.
Yet despite the boldness of the move, the Judicial Yuan went out of its way yesterday to avoid provoking the ire of the people on its list by highlighting their presumed innocence. The cases on record are either being tried for the first time in district courts or are being appealed to the High Court and Supreme Court, officials said, therefore they must be presumed innocent until final judgments are handed down.
"Not all of these records refer to criminal acts," said Yang Jen-shou (
"In any case, we shouldn't tag the label of `criminals' on them until proof of guilt has been finalized," he said.
Disclosure of the records, Yang said, is intended to speed up the pace at which the representatives' cases are handled. Most importantly, he said, the Judicial Yuan wants to use the records to press these representatives to appear in court on the date stated in their summonses.
"Some of them have used a variety of excuses to avoid appearing in court. They always seem to have meetings to attend when they should be appearing in court. And they often feel the need to take an overseas trip at times inconvenient to the court. These things make it difficult for the court to process their cases," Yang said.
One of the conclusions of the National Judicial Reform Conference this July was to do away with privilege, corruption, and "black money" politics.
Since that time, the Judicial Yuan has been collecting information regarding the status of those who have cases pending.
Many felt that the representatives were getting preferential treatment because of their positions in the government. The Judicial Yuan decided it was time for more transparency on the issue and made the cases public, and has said that it will keep the progress of the court in the public eye.
In Taiwan, members of the National Assembly as well as legislators are protected under an umbrella of immunity by the Constitution. That is, in session they are immune from any arrest or detention unless the Assembly or the Legislative Yuan approves disciplinary action.
And the elected representatives at local level -- city and county councilors -- are also legally entitled to immunity from arrest or detention as long as councils are in session.
Elected bodies in Taiwan, from local assemblies up to the Legislative Yuan, have come under widespread criticism for rarely voting to hand over their representatives to judicial authorities where criminal charges pend against them.
Cases exist, in fact, where members of local assemblies have even tried to prevent their own members from being arrested by convening special council sessions during normal adjournment periods.
And as immunity is widely used by some representatives to evade taking the fall for their actions, a slogan has been coined to describe their tactics: "Either get elected or go to jail."
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