“It is like having the player be the umpire,” he said. “I don’t know how the president’s appeal would help improve the judiciary.”
Chen Yen-hui (陳延輝), a professor at National Taiwan Normal University’s Graduate Institute of Political Science, said Ma could have the Ministry of Justice or state public prosecutor-general punish Hou had he forged the document in question, adding that Ma would not have any problem seeing Hou dismissed if Ma’s claim proved true.
“But I find Ma’s decision very strange,” Chen said. “I thought the president’s job was to deal with daily state affairs, but it seems he is more concerned about how to make all prosecutors do what he wants.”
By going after Hou, Chen said Ma was sending out a message to other prosecutors that he cannot be touched, or they would end up like Hou.
If Ma was serious about judicial reform, Chen said he could hire someone he trusts to do the job, but what he was doing now seemed to be “killing the chicken to scare the monkeys.”
Huang Chii-chen (黃啟禎), a law professor at Tunghai University, said if Ma meant what he said by serving the public interest, he should revamp the system so more people would benefit from it.
Ma’s move might draw much media attention, but it also intimidated the judiciary, Huang said.
While Ma has said he wanted to see prosecutors record the questioning process more accurately, Huang said he had not seen Ma present any concrete measure to achieve this goal.
“His argument makes sense, but between coming after a prosecutor and amending the law, it is more appropriate for the president to choose the latter,” he said.
“There shouldn’t be any problem for the KMT to revise any law because it enjoys a majority in the legislature,” he said.
Lin Ming-hsin (林明昕), a law professor at National Taiwan University, said that from the legal viewpoint, the president was entitled to sue anyone, and it was his right to justify such an action.
JUDGMENT
“For the president, he must make the best political judgment possible,” he said.
From the non-legal point of view, Lin said he did not see any meaning to Ma’s move except for political considerations.
Lin said that he suspected it was a scheme aimed at using his old litigation to revitalize public interest in the legal case against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
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