The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday filed a lawsuit against the three judges in charge of the Diane Lee (李慶安) case, accusing them of malfeasance.
The lawsuit was filed against Lee Ying-yong (李英勇), Tsui Ling-chi (崔玲琦) and Pai Kuang-hua (白光華) for their quashing of a two-year sentence handed down to former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Diane Lee, acquitting her of fraud in a dual-nationality controversy on Tuesday.
In January 2009, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office received confirmation from the US Department of State that Lee’s US citizenship remained valid while she was in office, a violation of a law which states that elected officials are not allowed to hold dual citizenship.
Chou Ni-an (周倪安), deputy director of the TSU’s organization department, described the trio as “dinosaur judges,” saying they ruled Lee innocent, despite her knowing that elected officials are not allowed to hold dual citizenship.
“This is like telling people that it’s OK to cheat,” Chou said of the ruling.
The judgement has drawn widespread criticism from the public, with two petitions against it on Facebook gathering more than 10,000 signatures.
Lee Ying-yong also handed down another controversial ruling in a sexual assault case in September last year, said Chen Te-hsien (陳德賢), executive director of TSU headquarters in Taipei.
Lee Ying-yong ruled that the defendant was not guilty of an alleged sexual assault on a three-year-old girl because there was no evidence to prove the act had been “against her will.”
Meanwhile, TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said he was not ruling out filing a lawsuit against the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) for forgery.
The SEF released letters sent by Taipei and Beijing, dated May 26, 2008, to prove that the so-called “1992 consensus” exists after Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) denied its existence on Tuesday.
Almost everyone involved in the cross-strait meeting in 1992, including late SEF chairman Koo Chen-foo (辜振甫), have denied the existence of such a consensus, Huang said.
“However, the SEF put the nonexistent consensus into written documents 16 years after the meeting. It was forgery,” Huang said.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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