Print

Mail

wiki links

Discipline, demotion for prosecutor in '04 vote-buying case

A prosecutor who made headlines for summoning the president as a witness last year in a vote-buying case was disciplined over the weekend for doing so without first getting the approval of his superiors.

The Committee on the Discipline of Public Functionaries ordered prosecutor Lee Tzu-chun (李子春) of the Hualien Prosecutors' Office to be demoted to a lower rank and have his salary reduced. The committee blamed Lee for sending a subpoena by post to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), without informing his superiors at the Hualien Prosecutors' Office, let alone getting their approval as is usual.

In his subpoena, Lee demanded that Chen give testimony in his capacity as the then-chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the investigation of vote-buying allegations against DPP candidate You Ying-lung (游盈隆) in the 2003 by-election of magistrate of Hualien County.

The committee also condemned Lee for prosecuting Yu for vote-buying in December 2004 -- more than one year after You lost the election -- without bothering to notify his superiors at the prosecutors' office or seeking their approval as is necessary.

Instead of having You's indictment examined and approved by his superiors, Lee send it secretly to the Hualien District Court, which accepted it and assigned a panel of judges to look into it despite State Public Prosecutor-General Wu Ying-chao (吳英昭) having denounced it as invalid and having requested its withdrawal. In his indictment, Lee claimed You's campaign promise to give monthly allowances to chiefs of Hualien's aboriginal tribes if he was elected constituted a form of vote-buying, and asked the court to sentence him to two months in jail.

The president was summoned to give testimony because Yu claimed during the campaign that all his promises had been endorsed by the president and were, therefore, far from empty words.

To the surprise of the country, the lawyer-turned-president showed up in Lee's office in Hualien on time to answer the prosecutor's questions, and successfully turned a potential political embarrassment into personal political capital by waiving presidential executive immunity from criminal investigation.

However, the Committee on the Discipline of Public Functionaries ruled that the elected head of state deserves due respect. By summoning him for questioning recklessly, the prosecutor obstructed the president's work in leading the country and serving the people.

Determining that Lee acted unethically by avoiding the supervision of his superiors, the ruling said Lee should be disciplined by a demotion, although the indictment he brought without following due process of law had been accepted by the court as valid.

Lee, known as a maverick law enforcement official, was referred to the committee for punishment by his embarrassed superiors at the Hualien Prosecutors' Office.
This story has been viewed 1668 times.