The High Court yesterday found Chang Hui-yuan (張輝元), the father of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chang Sho-wen (張碩文), guilty of buying votes on his son’s behalf and sentenced him to five years and two months in prison.
Chang Hui-yuan, head of an irrigation association in Yunlin County, had been found guilty of vote buying in the first trial at the Yunlin District Court.
The lower court sentenced him to five years and eight months and issued a fine of NT$2 million (US$60,000). Chang Hui-yuan then appealed the ruling.
Yesterday, the Tainan branch of the Taiwan High Court reduced Chang Hui-yuan’s sentence to five years and two months in prison, but the court upheld the NT$2 million fine.
The judges said in the ruling that the sentence was reduced because the number of people Chang Hui-yuan bought votes from was not as many as previously thought.
However, the court still ruled against him because they found evidence to prove he bought more than 100 votes through his irrigation association.
The judges also convicted him of soliciting others to commit crimes because Chang Hui-yuan held a meeting to collude with witnesses.
The ruling is not final and can be appealed for a third trial.
On June 30, the Tainan branch of the Taiwan High Court annulled the legislative election victory of Chang Hui-yuan’s son, Chang Sho-wen, saying that the son was aware of and had taken part in the vote-buying scheme allegedly organized by his father.
The annulment was handed down in a civil suit.
Chang Hui-yuan had registered in the KMT’s primary for the by-election to fill his son’s vacant legislative seat.
However, the KMT later rejected his registration based on the revised version of its “black-gold exclusion clause.”
The party’s clause stipulates that members who are found guilty of corruption in a first trial may not to be nominated for any election.
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