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Judge cricitcizes politicians for wasting resources

The nation's politicians are wasting judicial resources by filing slander lawsuits against one another, said a Taipei District Court judge who is presiding over Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) lawsuit against a former legislator.

Judge Chang Wen-chun (張文俊), made the remarks during a hearing attended by Ma.

Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) last September held a press conference accusing Ma of using his special allowance fund during his stint as Taipei mayor to buy, among other things, bras. As a result Ma filed a slander suit against Hsu.

But Hsu also filed a countersuit of malicious accusation against Ma.

Ma appeared at Taipei District Court yesterday to attend the hearing at the court's request.

Chang said at the hearing he found that Hsu's remark, which is in accordance with information written in Ma's indictment paper, was not groundless.

The judge told Ma that while he was acquitted by the Taiwan High Court on charges of embezzling special allowance funds as Taipei mayor, the verdict only indicated there was insufficient evidence to support the case, but could not prove his innocence.

When the nation's politicians used slander lawsuits to accuse one another they were not only wasting judicial resources but also polluting the judicial system with politics, Chang said.

Ma was indicted last February on charges of embezzling NT$11 million (US$338,000) from his special mayoral allowance during his eight years as Taipei mayor, but he was acquitted in two trials and prosecutors have appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

Ma yesterday told reporters that he would withdraw the suit "only if Hsu apologized for his false accusations."

Ma said that his former secretary, Yu Wen (余文), a co-defendant at his trial, was found to have used fraudulent receipts to claim reimbursements from his special allowance fund, so he knew nothing about the receipts Hsu accused him of claiming reimbursements for.

Meanwhile, Cabinet Spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) yesterday morning attended a slander hearing in which he was sued by Ma for alleging he once served as a "professional student" for the KMT while studying at Harvard University.

In Taiwan, the term "professional student" usually refers to individuals who studied abroad on KMT scholarships and worked as campus spies for the party, reporting on pro-independence Taiwanese students.

Shieh said in January last year that Ma should explain whether he had monitored the activities of Taiwanese students and collected information for the party while he studied law at Harvard from 1974 to 1981.

Shieh told the court yesterday his remark was based on fact and that he had evidence to question Ma's role as a student in the US.

Ma spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強), who attended the hearing representing Ma, told the court Shieh had provided no evidence to support such "a dirty accusation."
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