Media skews judicial neutrality

In the past few weeks, over a dozen lawsuits or charges have been filed by or against candidates for the presidential election on March 18.

As in past elections, the candidates and their supporters have been trying to use the judicial system to their own advantage by bringing a variety of charges against rival candidates.

In the runup to the vote, these kinds of politically sensitive cases have become a salient feature of media campaign coverage.

Now charged with a tough task of investigating the various charges against the candidates, the judiciary has inevitably become entangled in the battlefield of the campaign.

With few first-hand contacts with the candidates, the voters' perceptions of the candidates are often based on media coverage of the campaign.

Coverage of the legal proceedings is considered especially crucial to their political fortunes.

Most recently, Hung Tai-wen (洪泰文), the prosecutor in charge of investigating criminal charges against independent candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜), has been castigated for allowing himself to be manipulated by the ruling KMT to thwart Soong's presidential bid.

Soong and another frontrunner, DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), have challenged the impartiality of the judiciary in the case on a number of occasions, saying that it has been used as a tool of the KMT to combat other presidential contenders.

Adding to his problems, Hung has found himself under attack from within the judiciary itself since last week. A number of prosecutors, posting their opinions on the Web site of a prosecutor's association, blasted Hung's investigation of the embezzlement and forgery charges against Soong.

According to the prosecutors, the investigation not only affect Soong's fortunes in the election, but is crucial to the public perception of the judiciary as impartial or politically biased.

"How Hung proceeds with the case does not only affect his own reputation, but also the collective image of the whole judiciary," said Liu Wei-tsung (劉惟宗), a high court prosecutor and also head of the Prosecutors Reform Association (檢察官改革協會). "That is exactly why we have made such strong attacks on our colleague."

Bad timing

The KMT disclosed last December that Soong had diverted over NT$1 billion in party donations and revenues to a personal account during his tenure as secretary general of the party from 1989 to 1993.

Hung, a public prosecutor of the Taipei Prosecutors' Office, was appointed to investigate the case and has appeared in the media almost every day since then. Such is the intensity of the coverage that some believe that it has created an impression that Soong is guilty of the charges. And questions have arisen as to whether the judiciary has failed to stay away from political wrangling; or whether it has become part of it.

"Most voters are not familiar with the law or the principle of the presumption of innocence. They think a person is guilty as soon as an investigation is launched against him," said a lawyer who questioned the impartiality of the judiciary during the elections.

"They believe the prosecutors are doing everything just and make their judgements based on what the prosecutors say about the case. With Soong's case appearing in the media so frequently, it's hard for them to believe he is innocent of the charges," the lawyer added.