Legal experts have taken issue with the judiciary, accusing it of “selective prosecution” and having double standards in its investigation and prosecution of reported election irregularities.
Aletheia University law professor Wu Ching-chin (吳景欽) said that an investigation by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office into a case of alleged wiretapping at independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) campaign office saw prosecutors question several office staff and technicians, with the “prosecutors putting assiduous effort into their investigation of Ko’s camp.”
“After questioning, they listed Peng Sheng-shao (彭盛韶), a Ko office assistant, as a defendant, setting bail at NT$30,000,” Wu said.
In contrast, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元), who is also campaign director for Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), made Ko’s proposed list of advisers public before Ko’s campaign did, “but the prosecutors have not summoned Tsai for questioning,” Wu said.
“Prosecutors in their probe only made serious efforts to question Ko’s camp, Wu said. “No investigation was carried out on the other party, which somehow obtained the leaked information.”
“We wonder whether the same standards are being applied to both sides by Taipei prosecutors,” Wu said.
Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠), a lawyer and member of the Judicial Reform Foundation, said prosecutors should conduct judicial investigation in an independent and impartial manner “in theory” at least.
“However, our nation currently treats the prosecution system as one combined body, from the lower court to the supreme court, so in fact, prosecutors are not working independently, but are conducting probes as members of a team,” Kao said.
“Political cases with a high degree of sensitivity come in for close scrutiny, so when we see such cases being handled with double standards, the top judiciary officials cannot escape responsibility,” Kao said.
Taiwan has not completed the “transitional justice” process, which has allowed interference into the prosecution system by government and party forces, he said.
“The wiretapping case raised two possibilities. Either the prosecutors were stupid, lacking an understanding of politics, or they allowed themselves to be used as henchmen by politicians,” he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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