Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Policy Committee Director Alex Tsai (蔡正元) yesterday urged the Taipei District Court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) against former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), saying that the court is not a place to “vent personal grudges.”
Tsai held a news conference at KMT headquarters to throw his support behind Ma, hours before the former president was to appear in court yesterday afternoon.
“The court should not be a place for Ker to vent personal grudges, nor should it descend into the service of politics. I look forward to the day when Taiwan’s judicial system can transcend politics,” Tsai said, calling on the district court to throw out the lawsuit.
Ma is listed as a defendant in a case filed over charges of leaking state secrets, soliciting former prosecutor-general Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) to disclose secret information, and breaches of the Communication Security and Surveillance Act (通訊監察保護法) and the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
The charges Ma is facing are from a high-profile case in September 2013, when Huang allegedly leaked confidential information to Ma regarding a then-ongoing investigation regarding accusations that Ker and then-legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) were involved in improper use of influence.
The case was initially dismissed by the Taipei District Court in 2014 on grounds of a lack of substantial evidence, but the Taiwan High Court later remanded the case to the district court for retrial after Ker filed an appeal.
Tsai said that parties should refrain from filing lawsuits, as prosecutors are already looking into the case, adding that the legal action was a waste of public resources.
“Ker is apparently seeking to use the lawsuit to publicly shame Ma,” Tsai said. “We are already living in a society marked by ferocious power struggles in politics... Ker’s actions would only aggravate the situation and tear society apart.”
A dismissal of the lawsuit would undoubtedly help the nation’s judicial system regain the respect of the public, Tsai said, adding that the Taipei High Administrative Court’s decision on Friday last week to rule against the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee’s freezing of the KMT’s bank accounts had already helped in this regard.
“Efforts to bring change to Taiwan’s political culture should continue with the Taipei District Court’s dismissal of the case against Ma,” Tsai added.
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