President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday urged the justice system to avoid “detaching itself from the outside world” and “departing from public expectations” after the Taipei District Court on Friday acquitted former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), of money laundering and corruption charges, a verdict that prosecutors have said they would appeal.
As head of state, Ma said it was “inconvenient” for him to comment on an ongoing case. However, while the judiciary must be independent — something he emphasized during his Double Ten National Day address — it must not isolate itself from the outside world or deviate from public expectations, he said.
“The judiciary must protect the interests of the good and the honest. That is the least the system can do,” he said.
Ma made the remarks at an election event in Tainan County in the morning.
On Friday, the Taipei District Court said it found no evidence that Chen Shui-bian took NT$600 million (US$20 million) in exchange for promises not to block separate mergers initiated by Cathay Financial Holdings (國泰金控) and Yuanta Financial Holding (元大金控).
The spokesman for the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel, Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達), said yesterday the panel would appeal the verdict to the Taiwan High Court.
The spokesman said that in their ruling, the judges had “excessively narrowed” the definition of the authority of the president as stipulated in the Constitution, adding that such a definition could mean that whoever is president could do whatever he or she wants, as long as it is not in the scope of his or her official authority.
Friday’s ruling said that according to the Anti-Corruption Act (貪汙治罪條例), a public official violates the law by taking bribes in exchange for decisions or policies in favor of the bribers, but that according to the Constitution, the president’s duties do not include policies on bank mergers, so Chen was therefore unable to receive money from banks to help their merger proposals.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) said he hoped further investigation would be conducted so the public — which “desires so much social justice and judicial impartiality” — would not be “disappointed.”
While the verdict compared Chen and Ma and said Ma’s recent behavior went beyond his presidential duties, Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) dismissed it as a “bad comparison.”
Lo said the public would reach its own conclusions regarding the verdict and that the Presidential Office would not comment on the prosecutors’ decision to appeal.
However, Lo said it was incumbent upon him to provide clarifications on presidential authority, as there was apparently a yawning chasm between the court’s interpretation of presidential duties and the constitutional practices and public expectations.
As the president was popularly elected, Lo said the people expected him to listen to their grievances and resolve their problems, and it was only natural for the president to ask government agencies to respond to public opinions and set policies accordingly.
Meanwhile, the KMT said it would add anti-corruption to the theme of the Nov. 21 march they are organizing to boost the prospects of Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) re-election bid.
King declined to comment on whether the ruling in Chen’s case would motivate KMT supporters to come out and vote on Nov. 27. However, he said his party would add the themes of opposing corruption and insisting on judicial reform to the march.
Meanwhile, KMT Greater Kao-hsiung mayoral candidate Huang Chao-shun’s (黃昭順) campaign invited Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) to join her signature campaign against Friday’s ruling.
Huang’s campaign spokesman Tu Chien-heng (杜建衡) delivered an invitation to Chen Chu’s campaign headquarters urging the latter to support Huang’s demand that the Special Investigation Panel immediately appeal the ruling and voice support for Ma’s anti-corruption campaign.
Chen Chu has kept a low profile since the ruling.
In response, Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟), spokesman for Chen Chu’s campaign, called Huang’s signature drive an act of populism, saying that Huang, a KMT legislator, should return to the legislature if she really wanted to push judicial reform.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY RICH CHANG, FLORA WANG AND AP
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS