Prosecutors to go to bail hearings

Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) yesterday said that he will ask prosecutors to attend detention hearings from now on to avoid the careless mistakes of judges, since they may make the wrong decision and release important suspects on bail.

"Judges are human beings and make mistakes, too. At a detention hearing, their job is to decide whether the evidence and statements presented by prosecutors are strong enough to warrant approval of detention requests. However, it is a prosecutor's job to persuade the judge to approve a detention request by providing solid evidence when the suspects are important and it is necessary to detain them," Chen said. "We have to make judges realize how important such suspects are, and try our best to avoid potential mistakes."

During his remarks, Chen referred to Miaoli District Court's release of Hsueh Chiu (薛球) and Chen Yi-hua (陳益華), the nation's two most-wanted fugitives, on NT$200,000 bail and NT$300,000 bail on March 21, 2000.

After allegedly committing several firearms and blackmail offences, Hsueh and Chen were arrested by the police three years ago. However, Miaoli judges decided to release them on bail on the same day, even though prosecutors had asked for the suspects to be detained. The two men have been on the run ever since.

After their release, Hsueh and Chen allegedly robbed at least three banks and successfully fled with a total amount of more than NT$20 million. In addition, the fugitives kidnapped Taichung City Council Vice Speaker Chang Hung-nien (張宏年) on Oct. l last year, and also kidnapped the three sons and brother-in-law of Shen Mao-lin (沈茂林), a wealthy Chiayi businessman, on March 10 this year.

Chang was released after a few days when his family handed over an undisclosed sum.

Shen's sons and brother-in-law were released two days later after their family paid an NT$4.8 million ransom.

Miaoli District Court said that prosecutors did not attend the detention hearing of the two men, and the evidence and statements presented against the defendants was too weak for the court to grant a detention request. The men were therefore granted bail.

Prosecutors are not currently obliged to attend detention hearings and the minister's announcement yesterday will not require them to do so. The announcement is, however, widely expected to put pressure on prosecutors to make an appearance.

"We are very sorry for the decision [to release the suspects Hsueh and Chen] -- a decision which resulted in the later tragedies. But, at the very least, we will ask prosecutors to attend detention hearings to do their job and try to persuade judges to grant detention requests for important suspects in the future, so mistakes like this will be avoided," Chen said.