Residents appeal 921 earthquake ruling

Residents of the Doctors' Home Complex (博士的家), the collapse of one of the three buildings of which killed 45 people in the 921 earthquake last year, have filed an appeal against a district court verdict that, they believe, treated those they deem responsible for the disaster too leniently.

An investigation after the collapse found that the company that built the complex in Hsinchuang, Taipei County, Ho-chang Construction, was not in fact a licensed construction company and should not have been allowed to conduct the complex's construction project.

To skirt regulations, the company rented a professional license from another construction company -- called Chia-hsin (嘉信) -- and used the rented license to apply for official permits on the project. Additional work was sub-contracted to other companies.

The Panchiao District Court issued a ruling on June 12, in which 13 defendants connected with the construction of the apartment complex received sentences ranging from eight months to seven years imprisonment on charges of manslaughter and forgery.

The chief construction foreman of Hochang Construction, Lin Yi-hsin (林義信), received the toughest sentence of seven years imprisonment for his negligence in the building of the apartment complex.

Lin Ming-tang (林明堂), a board member of the company, was sentenced to five years and two months in prison, while architect Lien Chi-chien (連志謙) was sentenced to six and a half years.

The prosecution had originally brought charges of manslaughter and forgery for those who rented and received the construction license.

But while the court determined shoddy construction work was responsible for the disaster, it was not convinced the acts of license-renting had resulted in the poor quality of the work. On the grounds of a lack of a causal link, it then dismissed the charge of manslaughter against the defendants involved in license-renting and only convicted them of forgery.

The residents of the complex, who are still negotiating with the defendants over a settlement worth NT$600 million, have felt so dissatisfied with the ruling's leniency regarding the acts of license-renting that they together requested Panchiao District Court prosecutor Chen Ming-hsiang (陳銘祥) to file an appeal to the Taiwan High Court requesting harsher punishments for the widely-used practice of license-renting.

The prosecutor confirmed he had filed the appeal yesterday and said he hopes the High Court would agree with his views on the serious impact of license-renting on building safety.

Apart from the criminal case, the residents of the complex are also pursuing a class litigation against the defendants, seeking damages -- general and punitive -- of over NT$2 billion.