The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office has appealed a court ruling acquitting former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of leaking classified information related to an investigation of an opposition lawmaker while the investigation was ongoing in September 2013.
Prosecutors on Friday filed an appeal against the Aug. 25 ruling by the Taipei District Court, contending that it was made on an erroneous legal foundation, office spokesman Chou Shih-yu (周士榆) said.
By ruling in favor of Ma, the court misconstrued the president’s power to mediate interpersonal disputes and created an ambiguous standard that allows the president to step into “potential disputes between different branches of government,” which would allow the president to intervene in judicial investigations and infringe on people’s basic rights, Chou said.
The ruling has damaged the principle of separation of powers and the protection of people’s basic rights, he said.
If the ruling is accepted, it could lead to administrative power influencing the execution of justice through the manipulation of prosecutorial power, he said.
The case involves then-state prosecutor-general Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) showing Ma a transcript of wiretapped conversations that were part of evidence collected in an ongoing investigation of an alleged breach of trust by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
In the taped conversations, then-legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Ker were heard talking about lobbying two senior justice officials, including the minister of justice, to prevent an appeal in a breach of trust case in which Ker had been acquitted.
According to prosecutors, Ma encouraged Huang to leak the recording, Ker’s personal information and other information related to the investigation, to then-premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) as well as then-presidential office deputy secretary-general Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強).
The Taipei District Court on Aug. 25 ruled that Ma was not guilty, saying that there was insufficient evidence to show Ma had instigated the leak and no indication of criminal intent on his part.
The court also cited Article 44 of the Constitution to rule in Ma’s favor, saying that as president he had the power to intervene in disputes between different branches of government.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods