In the wake of the Investigation Bureau’s arrest of New Party spokesman Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) and John Wu (吳志揚) yesterday unveiled a draft amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) aimed at granting witnesses the right to seek legal assistance while being questioned by prosecutors or investigators.
The draft amendment targets Article 175 of the act, which stipulates the rules to be followed by people if they are summoned by a law enforcement agency as a witness, but does not say they can request the presence of a lawyer when being questioned, the lawmakers said.
The article effectively denies witnesses the right to seek legal advice when being questioned, which is clearly a loophole and an infringement of their human rights, they said.
Photo: CNA
Wang was taken to the bureau for questioning for 18 hours, during which time his access to the rest of the world was cut off because he could not be accompanied by a lawyer, Lin said.
Wang was listed as a witness in an espionage case implicating former Chinese student Zhou Hongxu (周泓旭), but that he was questioned as a defendant showed that prosecutors and bureau officials were exploiting the loophole, he said.
“Never have witnesses been searched or arrested by warrant,” Lin said.
The existing act allows defendants to be accompanied by a lawyer when questioned, but denies that right to witnesses, effectively offering defendants more protection, which is unreasonable, he said.
Wu, a former lawyer, said the lack of legal protection for witnesses has long been a source of controversy in the legal sector, adding that other nations that follow the rule of law have long since banned law enforcers from questioning witnesses as they do suspects.
As the law requires a person under investigation to exercise their right to silence one question at a time, the draft amendment aims to grant witnesses the right to consult a lawyer as to whether they should remain silent on certain questions, thereby avoiding prosecutors or investigators forcefully eliciting information from witnesses, for example by threatening them with an indictment, he said.
The draft also stipulates that the entire questioning process should be recorded, a rule that only applies when questioning defendants, he said.
The draft also includes provisions that exempt relatives within a certain degree of consanguinity to a litigant and people obligated to maintain confidentiality for a company from being questioned, Wu said.
According to the draft bill, in cases where a person of interest could reveal information that would jeopardize national security or hurt the public interest, that person would also be exempted from questioning.
To avoid collusion, the draft bans witnesses from hiring the same lawyer or using the same law firm as the defendant.
It also bans more than one suspect sharing a lawyer or using the same law firm, as well as witnesses having their legal fees paid by another party, Wu said.
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