Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Shih Ming-teh's (施明德) anti-corruption campaign yesterday proposed an amendment to the Anti-Corruption Statute (貪污治罪條例) that would include an article which stipulates government officials who live in luxury explain where their wealth came from.
The proposed amendment also includes a regulation allowing prosecution of the president and the first family for crimes committed during their term, after the president leaves office.
The Constitution protects the president from prosecution for criminal acts but he can be prosecuted for acts of rebellion or treason.
The campaign said that an article allowing the prosecution of non-government personnel who help government officials commit corruption has also been added to the proposal because in many corruption cases, government officials find a third party willing to accept blame for any improper conduct so they can evade punishment.
Anyone who refused an investigation into their property would be punished.
Campaign organizer Yao Li-ming (姚立明) told a press conference that requiring government officials to explain the origin of their wealth is a global trend and was an important way of telling whether someone is corrupt.
The UN Treaty against Corruption passed in 2003 regulates that government officials need to explain how they manage to live such a lifestyle if they obviously cannot afford to do so according to their income, Yao said.
John Wei (魏千峰), who is also an organizer of the campaign, said that over the past decade, many international organizations have come to regard "fighting corruption" as a basic human right and therefore such an article does not contradict the legal principle of "innocent until proven guilty."
Shih told the press that his campaign had been discussing how to help the country establish a sound judicial system.
He said he hoped the proposal would be put on the legislative agenda in the Procedure Committee meeting to be held today, moved directly to a second reading on the legislative floor by Friday and passed into law by Dec. 9, the same day of the year-end mayoral election.
Shih's campaign, led by campaign organizer Wei Yao-chien (魏耀乾), visited party caucuses in the legislature after the press conference.
The proposal gained the support of all party caucuses, with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus and People First Party caucus endorsing it.
The Non-Partisan Solidarity Union also showed its support for the proposal, while the DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union caucuses said they supported the proposal but hoped Shih's campaign could also support the recovery of the KMT's stolen assets.
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