Following yet another investigation into the use of special allowance funds, Vice President Annette Lu (
The DPP's presidential and vice presidential candidates Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) were not charged. This time, prosecutors took aim at the DPP's top leadership. Quite a few people have voiced concerns over prosecutors deciding not to charge Hsieh and Su despite indicting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for his use of the special allowance fund when he was Taipei mayor. The new charges have provided KMT supporters who were outraged after Ma's indictment with another excuse to air their frustrations.
Since the middle of last year, politicians have been doing their best to destroy each other. The first round in this morbid competition was the "special state affairs fund" case against President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the charges against Ma. Following that, there were the demands that potential DPP presidential candidates Lu, Yu, Su and Hsieh be indicted, followed by incumbent and past judicial chiefs, court presidents and chief prosecutors who were accused of misappropriating their special allowance funds and therefore became targets of prosecutorial investigations.
Prosecutor Eric Chen (陳瑞仁) indicted first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) in connection to the special state affairs fund case while prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen (侯寬仁) indicted Ma over his use of the special mayoral allowance fund. As far as prosecutorial independence goes, these two investigations and indictments set a new standard by bringing to court people who the general public had thought would never be investigated.
Regardless of what the court's decision will be in these cases or any kind of criticism against the standards for indictment, it should now be clear to everyone that the judicial system is independent in the way it handles its cases and that there is no outside political intervention. Further evidence of this situation is the dissatisfaction with the judiciary that politicians from the different camps express when the results of an investigation are not beneficial to them.
However, judicial independence not only depends on the absence of outside political intervention, and there is of course much room for improvement when it comes to the issue of whether individual prosecutors and judges are capable of transcending party politics and delivering independent decisions based on legal concerns alone.
If there are no further surprises, such as Hsieh's saying that he will extend a presidential pardon to everyone charged with misusing the special allowance fund, or if courts follow the view of Tsai Shou-hsun (
Given that the regulations surrounding the special allowance for government chiefs are not very clear, we can only sit by wondering what standards are used for making decisions, hoping that judges and prosecutors will handle these cases in an independent manner based on their knowledge, conscience and academic understanding, while the involved parties are left in an uncomfortable position.
The public hopes for the quick development of a fair, objective and credible judiciary. I believe that this applies not only to government chiefs, but even more so to the public. When it comes to judicial affairs, however, apart from looking for solutions within the system, we are helpless in dealing with qualitatively inferior verdicts, poor prosecutorial decisions and judges and prosecutors making sloppy, ridiculous and mistaken judgments.
This is easily surmised by the ridiculous verdicts frequently highlighted in the media without any sign whatsoever that judges or prosecutors are being punished.
With the extremely strong constitutional professional protection of judges and prosecutors with questionable performance, it makes one wonder if every one of us may fall victim to the judiciary.
In the past, it was only the common man that suffered judicial harm, but with the increasing development of democracy in Taiwan, high officials -- including government chiefs -- and powerful businesspeople face judicial scrutiny.
The draft judge act that the legislature has reviewed many times includes a design for a mechanism to evaluate judges
If one of the parties in a trial cannot accept the quality of a judge's decision, that party may file a complaint with an independent judge evaluation foundation, and if an investigation shows that there is foundation for the complaint, the strongest disciplinary action is to dismiss the judge. This mechanism can be used to supervise the quality of a judge's decisions and guarantee that the public will not suffer.
As for the quality of prosecutors and how they handle their cases, before there is a public prosecutor act, an independent evaluation mechanism similar to the one suggested for judges could be used to supervise prosecutors. Unfortunately, the draft judge act has been reviewed by the legislature several times without being passed into law.
As the special allowance fund cases continue, those being tried should think of effective ways to maintain judicial quality rather than just sitting around waiting for the investigation results.
In other words, they should consider whether or not the judge evaluation mechanism in the draft judge act should be quickly turned into legislation and implemented. Such a decision would be a milestone for judicial reform.
Lin Feng-jeng is the executive director of the Judicial Reform Foundation.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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