The Taipei District Court yesterday found Taipei District Court Judge Chou Chan-chun (周占春) not guilty in a trial that stemmed from his release of the name of a witness to the public.
Chou and his secretary, Liu Lee-ying (劉麗英), had been charged with malfeasance for alleged negligence in the disclosure of the name of a witness who was involved in an illegal drug production and transportation case heard by Chou, Taipei prosecutors said.
Chou and Liu were found to have failed to seal a classified document that had witnesses’ names on it. As a result, after a lawyer for the defendant in the case, surnamed Lu, read the document and told his client of the matter, the witness was threatened and beaten by the defendant, prosecutors alleged.
The ruling said that whenever prosecutors believed the name of a witness needed to be classified, they should apply to a judge to do so, but that in the case at hand, prosecutors did not apply for the witness’ name to be withheld and therefore Chou was under no obligation to do so.
Chou’s problems occurred soon after he had cited insufficient evidence and acquitted former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), on charges of money laundering and taking bribes from bankers in exchange for manipulating bank mergers.
Chou said in the ruling on Nov. 5 last year that the Anti-Corruption Act (貪汙治罪條例) states that a public official violates the law by taking bribes in exchange for decisions or policies that favor the bribers, but according to the Constitution, the president’s duties do not include overseeing bank mergers, so Chen therefore would have been unable to receive money from banks and reciprocate by helping their merger proposals.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
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