President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday nominated Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明), the chief prosecutor of the Taiwan High Court's Kaohsiung branch, as the nation's top prosecutor.
The Presidential Office yesterday afternoon forwarded the nomination document to the Legislative Yuan, whose consent is required to confirm the appointment.
On April 11, the opposition parties used their legislative muscle to scuttle the appointment of the president's nominee Hsieh Wen-ding (
Chen Tsung-ming served as the convener of the special investigation team probing the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) scandal.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said yesterday that the president told him on Tuesday that a new nominee for the state public prosecutor-general would be announced, and that he expected the legislature would support the nomination this time.
But People First Party (PFP) caucus whip Lee Hung-chun (
"Until all the corruption cases of Chen Shui-bian's government are clarified, we don't think the president, who has lost public trust, will be able to persuade us that the nominee he is proposing is competent," Lee said.
"Nominating a new candidate at this point would only cause more controversy," Lee added.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus had a more moderate reaction, saying that a special panel will review Chen Tsung-ming's qualifications and will decide later whether to support the president's nomination.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Chen Chin-jun (
Chen Chin-jun said that when the last candidate for the position was nominated, the pan-blue camp attempted to take advantage of its legislative majority to enable a specific candidate it backed to become the member of the special investigation team empowered to investigate high-ranking government officials.
Chen Chin-jun said that he hoped the pan-blue camp would not set such ridiculous conditions and attempt to make a deal on the nominations for the nation's top prosecutor.
According to a CNA report, Chen Tsung-ming was low-key when asked by the media about the nomination.
"No one has inquired about my intentions on the matter," he said, adding that "it would be tough to serve as state public prosecutor-general."
Judicial sources said he was chosen because of his solid qualifications and record, as well as his pragmatic approach to dealing with cases, the CNA said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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