The Taiwan High Court yesterday quashed a two-year sentence handed down to former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) by a lower court and acquitted her of fraud over a dual-nationality controversy.
The court said prosecutors could appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
In March 2008, a number of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers sued Lee for fraud and corruption because she maintained US citizenship while serving as a Taipei city councilor and then as a legislator. Elected officials are not allowed to hold dual citizenship.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
At the time, Lee claimed she mistakenly believed her US citizenship would automatically become invalid when she took up a public position.
In January 2009, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office received confirmation from the US Department of State that Lee’s US citizenship remained valid.
Prosecutors said that on personnel forms she filled out as a Taipei City councilor in 1994 and during her three terms as a lawmaker starting in 1998, Lee deliberately left blank a field asking whether she held citizenship from a country other than the Republic of China.
In September 2009, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Lee on charges of fraud. Prosecutors accused Lee of intentionally concealing her US citizenship during one term as a Taipei city councilor and three terms as a legislator, during which she was paid more than NT$100 million (US$3 million).
On Feb. 5 last year, the Taipei District Court found her guilty on four counts of fraud and sentenced her to two years in prison.
The Taiwan High Court’s ruling said that although Lee had dual citizenship and her elected status should have been invalidated by the Central Election Committee, the commission had maintained Lee’s elected status, which was an administrative error. Nevertheless, because Lee maintained her position as a Taipei City councilor and legislator, accepting her salary could not be seen as fraud, the ruling said.
The Taipei City Council, the commission and the legislature were obliged to examine Lee’s citizenship status during her terms as a councilor and as a legislator, but those agencies never questioned Lee about her citizenship status, and because Lee was able to keep her status, taking her salary could not be regarded as fraud, the ruling said.
Lee, daughter of former premier Lee Huan (李煥), said in a statement that she felt relieved that justice had been served.
KMT Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said it was “unfair” to accuse Diane Lee of fraud since she had performed well as both a city councilor and as a legislator.
However, the DPP said the ruling went against people’s expectations and common sense.
The ruling was like a “game--fixing call,” said DPP spokesman Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄).
The public was not happy with the Taipei District Court’s ruling in the first trial because it did not charge Lee with corruption and yet yeterday’s verdict was even more shocking, he said.
Liang Wen-jie (梁文傑), another DPP spokesman, said the ruling could set a dangerous precedent because it was the first case involving public servants’ dual citizenship, which is prohibited by the Nationality Act (國籍法).
“By pronouncing Lee innocent, you’re telling public servants they do not commit a crime by holding dual citizenship, although they will be discharged from their duties, and that they don’t need to return their salaries,” Liang said. “You’re encouraging people to commit crimes and cheat.”
Lee’s argument that she thought she had lost her US citizenship the moment she was sworn in as a councilor was unsupportable because she questioned Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟), then-deputy mayor of Taipei, about his dual citizenship and demanded he resign in 1995, Liang said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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
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
INTENSIFYING THREATS: Beijing’s tactics include massive attacks on the government service network, aircraft and naval vessel incursions and damaging undersea cables China is prepared to interfere in November’s nine-in-one local elections by launching massive attacks on the Taiwanese government’s service network (GSN), a report published by the National Security Bureau showed. The report was submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of the bureau’s scheduled briefing at the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The national security team has identified about 13,000 suspicious Internet accounts and 860,000 disputed messages, the bureau said of China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan. The disputed messages focus on major foreign affairs, national defense and economic issues, which were produced using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed through Chinese
COUNTERING HOSTILITY: The draft bill would require the US to increase diplomatic pressure on China and would impose sanctions on those who sabotage undersea cable networks US lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill to bolster the resilience of Taiwan’s submarine cables to counter China’s hostile activities. The proposal, titled the critical undersea infrastructure resilience initiative act, was cosponsored by Republican representatives Mike Lawler and Greg Stanton, and Democratic Representative Dave Min. US Senators John Curtis and Jacky Rosen also introduced a companion bill in the US Senate, which has passed markup at the chamber’s Committee on Foreign Relations. The House’s version of the bill would prioritize the deployment of sensors to detect disruptions or potential sabotage in real-time and enhance early warning capabilities through global intelligence sharing frameworks,
RSS