The Taiwan High Court yesterday ordered the Taipei District Court to reconsider its Dec. 18 decision to release former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) pending trial on corruption and money laundering charges. Following the ruling, a hearing will be held this afternoon to decide whether or not Chen will be detained.
The high court made the order at 1:50am yesterday following an appeal filed by the Supreme Prosecutors Office’s Special Investigation Panel (SIP) on Thursday against the Taiwan District Court’s previous decision to release Chen.
High court spokesman Wen Yao-yuan (溫耀源) told reporters that the decision by the lower district court was “a violation of justice. Therefore the high court decided to retract the ruling.”
“The Taipei District Court’s ruling disregarded evidence provided by the prosecutors who warned that the defendant could collude with other suspects and flee the country,” Wen said.
In the appeal presented to the Taiwan High Court, the prosecutors said they would soon begin investigating several other corruption cases allegedly involving Chen and his wife Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), and that if he were allowed to remain free, some of the witnesses, including three of his former close aides, might withold information.
It was the second time the SIP succeeded in having the Taiwan High Court throw out the Taipei District Court’s decision. The first time was when the SIP filed an appeal with the high court on Dec. 17 in which the latter ordered the district court to reconsider the release. The district court upheld its decision in its second ruling on Dec. 18, which led to the SIP’s second appeal on Thursday.
Chen was detained on Nov. 12 and indicted on Dec. 12 on charges of embezzling government funds, money laundering and forgery related to four cases along with 13 others, including his wife, son and daughter-in-law.
Chen has repeatedly said the charges against him were politically motivated, accusing the China-friendly government of his successor, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), of leading a witchhunt.
SIP spokesman Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南) told reporters yesterday that “the SIP appreciated the high court’s ruling and prosecutors were working hard for tomorrow’s [today] hearing.”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) yesterday said the fact that the high court overruled the district court’s previous decision to release Chen without bail while asking it to reconsider its decision “is a slap in the face to [Presiding] Judge Chou Chan-chun (周占春) because the high court rebutted every reason why Chou believed the former president should be freed.”
KMT caucus secretary-general Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) urged the district court “to carefully assign” another judge to preside over Chen’s trials so that the public would not question the impartiality of the court.
Tsai Shou-hsun(蔡守訓)was voted to replace Presiding Judge Chou to handle Chen-related cases during a meeting held among the district court’s presiding judges on Thursday night, citing that Tsai had previously handled cases concerning Chen.
As a result, today’s hearing will be presided over by Tsai not Chou.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG AND CNA
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant