President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Saturday said he hoped that in future prosecutors would use computer screens to allow suspects being questioned to read the transcripts of the questioning in an effort to tackle the problem of misinterpretations.
Ma made the remarks at a Lawyer’s Day celebration at the Taiwan Bar Association. Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰), Taiwan Bar Association chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) and Judicial Yuan President Lai In-jaw (賴英照) were all present at the event.
In a speech to members of the association, Ma commended it for promoting lawyers’ re-commitment to ethical behavior and its emphasis on integrity.
He also said that his experiences two years ago in a case relating to his handling of special funds allowed him to realize that many improvements needed to be implemented in the judicial system.
Ma said he has instructed the minister of justice to require prosecutors to display on a computer screen a word-by-word transcript of the questioning, so that the defendant can clear up any misunderstandings.
Ma’s comments came after the Taipei District Court rejected his request two weeks ago to overturn a decision by prosecutors not to indict Special Investigation Panel prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen (侯寬仁).
In June, Ma filed a letter of committal asking the court to instruct prosecutors to indict Hou on forgery charges after they rejected an earlier request filed by Ma’s lawyer.
Hou was one of the prosecutors investigating Ma’s handling of his special allowance funds when he was Taipei mayor, minister of justice, vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, among other posts.
Last year, Ma had asked the court to remove three prosecutors from his cases, citing “bias.”
He also accused Hou of falsely documenting his questioning of a witness in the case.
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