Taiwan High Prosecutor’s Office Tainan Branch judge Hsu Hong-chi (徐宏志) was relieved of duty on Friday, the first time a judge has been sacked for playing mahjong.
Hsu, 66, likes to play mahjong, and plays more than a hundred times a year. After he ruled that former Tainan County Council speaker Chou Wu-liu (周五六) was innocent in a vote-buying lawsuit in 2001, Hsu played mahjong with Chou and Chou’s wife.
He allegedly took more than NT$10 million (US$306,000) in bribe money from Chou.
BRIBE ALLEGATIONS
Although Hsu was found innocent of taking a bribe in his first and second hearing, he was relieved of his duties on Friday by the Committee on the Discipline of Public Functionaries because he “indulged in the game of mahjong and played it with a defendant.”
Chou was alleged to have bribed councilors before the Tainan County councilor speaker election in 1994 and allegedly offered paid vacations abroad to several councilors.
SPECULATION
While Chou’s judges found him guilty in the first and second hearings, Hsu found him innocent in the final hearing.
It was speculated that Chou’s wife, Chen Hsiu-hsia (陳秀霞), had learned that Hsu was a mahjong fan and began playing mahjong with the judge via an introduction from Hsu’s mahjong buddy, Lin Ting-lie (林廷烈).
Taiwan High Prosecutor’s Office Tainan Branch spokesperson Yeh Ju-cheng (葉居正) said on Friday that Hsu had been suspended from his post in July 2006.
Yeh said the court would process the committee’s orders regarding his termination when it receives them.
Hsu also lost his pension plan, which would have amounted to more than NT$10 million. However, he can still practice as a lawyer.
Judicial Reform Foundation executive director Lin Feng-jeng (林峰正) said the Ministry of Justice should restrict controversial judges from practicing law.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS