President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said it was necessary to establish an anti-corruption commission following a recent slew of government corruption cases, including a scandal involving judges.
Ma said he felt distressed over the corruption scandals, but regret was not enough. Concrete action must be taken, he said.
“After listening to the assessment report of the Ministry of Justice [MOJ], both the premier and I think it is practical and feasible to establish a commission against corruption,” he told a press conference after hearing reports by Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) at the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon.
Ma said he asked the MOJ and the Executive Yuan to present bills on creating such an agency to the legislature in a speedy manner. Tseng said he hoped to present the bills to the Executive Yuan and legislature during the next legislative session, which starts in September.
Ma said he made the decision based on three reasons. First was to buttress government efforts to combat corruption; second was in response to public expectations; and third to conform with international standards.
Ma’s decision was an apparent policy U-turn, as his party blocked a similar proposal at the legislature when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in power on several occasions.
In addition to establishing a commission, Ma said he wanted government agencies to implement a code of conduct for civil servants and hold regular anti-corruption meetings.
Emphasizing the importance of clean government, Ma said he was determined to combat corruption and would not allow a few corrupt civil servants to tarnish the reputation of the public sector and the government.
“Some are doubtful that the commission would be able to resolve the problem of government corruption,” Ma said. “Of course we cannot rely solely on the unit to fix all the problems, but I have always believed that success in fighting corruption has a lot to do with the resolve of government leaders.”
Ma said the commission would be established under the MOJ. Taiwan would not copy the approach of Hong Kong or Singapore, where the units were established under the prime minister or president, Ma said, adding that its unique feature would be to specialize in fighting corruption and vote-buying.
The commission would serve as the “judicial police,” with the right to search, seize and detain, Ma said. At the initial stage, the unit would employ about 200 people and its ultimate goal would be to lower the crime rate and increase the conviction rate, Ma said.
Tseng, however, told a different story, saying preventing and fighting corruption would be its sole duty. Responding to the news, the DPP said the plan failed to address the root of the problem.
“If the KMT truly wanted to clean up the judiciary and pass judicial reforms, it would not have wasted a decade by blocking similar DPP proposals in the legislature a total of 177 times,” DPP spokesperson Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said.
He said the DPP proposal was more thorough and proposed a clear chain of responsibility, a complete budget and legal plan that would provide for full autonomy.
Lin said Ma’s plan was little more than a reshuffle of existing government agencies, likening it to a hastily assembled car and saying that it would fail to solve the root problem of the government corruption.
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