The decision by the Tainan Prosecutors' Office on Monday not to indict Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over the alleged misuse of his special allowance fund led pan-blue lawmakers yesterday to question the indictment of former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
On Monday, the prosecutors announced that former Tainan deputy mayor Hsu Yang-ming (
Ma was indicted on Feb. 13 on corruption charges for allegedly siphoning off funds from his special allowance during his eight-year tenure in the Taipei City Government.
The difference between the outcomes of two similar investigations means that the decision to indict Ma should be questioned, pan-blue lawmakers argued yesterday.
"State Public Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) should be the one to set a clear standard, but I doubt he has the ability," KMT Legislator Kao Su-po (高思博) said.
"In the cases of Hsu Yang-ming and Hsu Tain-tsair, the special allowance funds were treated as part of their salaries," People First Party caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (
"In this regard, prosecutors should not have indicted Ma on corruption charges," he said.
When asked to comment on the matter during the question-and-answer session on the legislative floor yesterday, Premier Su Tseng-chang (
Su had said previously that the controversy surrounding special allowance funds was the result of a flaw in the government system, and that individuals were not at fault.
Su yesterday refused to comment on whether prosecutors had adopted different standards in their investigations, but said that everyone had to face justice -- even if their crimes were a result of a flaw in the system.
Approached by pan-blue lawmakers, Minister of Justice Morley Shih (施茂林) agreed to consider the possibility of a national conference for prosecutors-general to set a standard for investigating allegations of embezzlement of special allowance funds.
Meanwhile, the DPP caucus said that prosecutors at the Tainan District Court had failed to deal with Hsu Yang-ming's special allowance case in a professional manner.
DPP caucus whip Wang Sing-nan (
Instead, Wang said Chen Ming-chin had devoted several pages to the history of the special allowance fund system.
"The characteristics and use of special allowance funds are in fact highly controversial," Chen Ming-chin wrote.
The DPP caucus said it did not believe it was the job of prosecutors to deal with "systemic problems." Instead, prosecutors should deal only with crimes, Wang said.
DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (
DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲), Hsu Yang-ming's wife, said that the indictment of her husband was a political persecution as a result of her previous criticism of Ma.
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