The Taiwan High Court's Black Gold Investigation Center is facing an uncertain future.
Incoming Minister of Justice Morley Shih (
Former justice minister Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) set up the Black Gold Investigation Center in July 2000 to serve as a special prosecutorial office. It has four branches in the Taiwan High Court Prosecutor's Office in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
The center was conceived as a powerful, efficient and professional task force in the fight against political corruption.
But last June Chen attempted to close the center down because funding had become too difficult to secure.
The center did not close, however, because of opposition by the center's prosecutors, Eric Chen (
Shen told reporters that closing the center would be inconsistent with and damaging to the ministry's anti-corruption policy.
Last month, three opposition lawmakers under investigation for alleged acts of bribery by the center threatened to cut the center's proposed NT$7 million budget in retaliation.
The tactic failed after prosecutors informed reporters of the link. Soon after, other lawmakers and two non-governmental organizations stood up to support the center.
The legislature then approved the center's budget for this year.
However, some aggrieved district prosecutors have cast doubt on the role of the center. They say that much of its work overlaps with their own.
"There is no difference between the Black Gold Investigation Center's work and that of the district anti-corruption task forces," said a Taipei District Court prosecutor, who asked to remain anonymous.
"The center has became a symbol of the government's determination to crack down on political corruption, so eradicating the center would be seen as giving in to corruption on the government's part," he said.
"But this is a misunderstanding, because the anti-corruption task forces under district prosecutor offices have been doing the same job. So the closure would not mean the government was turning a blind eye to corruption," the prosecutor said.
However, center prosecutor Eric Chen, who is also the spokesman for the Prosecutors' Reform Association, said the Black Gold Investigation Center should be praised and allowed to continue operating because it had investigated and prosecuted serious and sensitive cases that might not be easily resolved at a district level.
Examples of these were cases implicating former independent legislator Lo Fu-chu (
Eric Chen said that unlike district prosecutors, the center could focus on a single, serious case and take it to court quickly.
The center was also authorized to use the resources of district prosecutors, the Bureau of Investigation, military police and regular police, he said.
But most of all, he said, the center could better withstand political interference.
But the operations of the center seemingly conflict with the Code of Criminal Procedure (
The Code of Criminal Procedure states that prosecutions must be presided over by district offices and not the High Court. And because the center has not been included in the Court Organic Law, the ad hoc organization has faced perennial funding difficulties.
Shih said that either the Court Organic Law had to be amended to recognize the center and clarify the center's powers in relation to the district prosecutor's offices, or else the center would be closed down and its work returned to district offices.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS