The Judicial Yuan yesterday said it would immediately suspend a High Court judge who was photographed meeting former Taitung County commissioner Wu Chun-li (吳俊立) while his case is under review.
Wu was charged with corruption while serving as a Taitung County councilor in 1999.
In 2002, the Taitung District Court sentenced him to 16 years in prison, but the Taiwan High Court’s Hualien branch reduced the sentence to seven years and eight months in 2003. Wu has appealed the ruling. The case is currently under review by the Taiwan High Court’s Hualien branch.
The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that the Ministry of Justice’s (MOJ) ethics committee recently discovered that Judge Lin Teh-sheng (林德盛) visited Wu’s home while the case was being reviewed at the High Court. Lin is one of the judges assigned to the case.
Investigators suspect that Lin may have accepted bribes from Wu in exchange for influencing the outcome of the judicial review in Wu’s favor.
Wu was placed under investigation in May after being suspected of having relations with various individuals involved with the case.
Aside from allegedly meeting Wu, it was also reported that Lin may be having an extramarital affair. Lin has recently been photographed visiting an unmarried female friend during his lunch break.
Lin yesterday denied the allegations and said he would cooperate with the investigation.
Judicial Yuan spokesperson Hsieh Wen-ting (謝文定) said the Judicial Yuan had suspended Lin and reported the case to the Control Yuan so that impeachment proceedings can begin.
If Lin is found guilty of engaging in illegal activities or adversely affected the reputation of the prosecutorial and judicial system, he will be punished accordingly, Hsieh said.
Because Lin is still being probed by prosecutors and investigators, Hsieh was not able to elaborate on the details of the case.
At a separate setting, Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) said the ministry would investigate the matter and punish any wrongdoers.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching