The Supreme Court yesterday upheld an earlier decision and ruled against former Council for Cultural Affairs minister Emile Sheng (盛治仁) in a libel suit related to the 2011 musical Dreamers (夢想家), finding the three defendants — writer Neil Peng (馮光遠), cartoonist Tsai Hsieh-tsung (蔡協崇) and Taipei City Councilor Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) — not guilty.
The court said criticism directed at Sheng and government-funded cultural programs in 2011 were issues of public interest, which may be subject to open debate, and that freedom of speech protected their right to express their opinions.
The defendants verified information to a reasonable degree and expressed their opinions without defaming Sheng, the court said, upholding an earlier verdict by the Taiwan High Court.
Yesterday’s ruling is final.
Sheng, serving in the administration of then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), was responsible for all aspects of arts and cultural programs, including overseeing budgets and granting government contracts, for a series of celebratory events and activities marking the centenary of the founding of the Republic of China.
A row ensued revolving around Dreamers, a rock musical by playwright Stan Lai (賴聲川), which was panned by critics. Among the criticism of the performance was its exorbitant budget: NT$258 million (US$8.1 million at the current exchange rate) for a two-night run on Oct. 10-11, 2011.
Peng called Dreamers an “extravagant waste of money,” saying that it was the result of “political and cultural elites colluding for profit” and that “Lai got the contract through his family and political connections to Ma.”
Sheng was not spared criticism by Peng, who called the then-minister “human garbage” and “a shameless government official” and said that “Sheng is a sycophantic dog serving his political masters, Ma and [then-premier] Wu [Den-yih (吳敦義)].”
Sheng resigned from the post on Nov. 18, 2011, and later filed a lawsuit in 2012 against Peng, Tsai and Liang, seeking NT$1 million in damages.
Tsai had teamed up with Peng, drawing cartoons that alleged Sheng had colluded with other officials to give fat government contracts for the centennial events only to Lai — who was known to be in Ma’s inner circle of friends — and a few other artists with close connections to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Liang had publicly said that Sheng divided the project into separate contracts to skirt public tender regulations and illegally profit, and requested that public prosecutors investigate alleged financial irregularities in the case.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS