The indictment of eight former and incumbent legislators on Tuesday on charges of accepting bribes from the Taiwan Dental Association has once again brought the murky goings on of the political world into the spotlight.
The accused were indicted for receiving various amounts of cash from the association between 2002 and 2003 in return for backing an oral healthcare act which allowed dentists to receive cash from the National Health Insurance.
One of those indicted, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (
But Tsai's accusations of bias is not the issue; it is the ambiguous distinction between a "bribe" and a "donation" that is the problem. In the eyes of the law, the only difference between a bribe and a donation is the amount involved -- sums under NT$300,000 (US$9,300) are classified as donations.
Another, more worrying aspect, is that it allows lawmakers to openly receive large amounts of cash from people looking to further their own interests.
The dental association case is startlingly similar to that of the National Chinese Herbal Apothecary Association in which eight legislators were indicted earlier this month for allegedly accepting bribes in return for their support for an amendment to a law that restored an association member's right to fill out medical prescriptions.
These events took place in 1997, yet they were not investigated until Chinese-language Next magazine brought them to light in January last year.
Hopefully, the passage of the Political Donations Law in 2004 and the Lobby Law, which comes into effect in August, will help curb such behavior. But in the meantime it would be interesting to know how many other cases of this nature have occurred in the intervening years and how much money has been used to grease the palms of corrupt lawmakers. No wonder the reputation of legislators remains among the lowest of the low.
Since it gained a huge majority in the legislative elections earlier this month, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been busy assuaging public concern, saying it will run a "clean legislature," prioritize proposed amendments to the Political Donations Law and adhere to a "clean politics agreement" that advocates strict adherence to the existing "sunshine laws."
KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
But the public should not forget this is the same party that during the last legislature doggedly refused to pass nine DPP-backed sunshine bills that are more comprehensive and stricter in nature.
Whether the new legislature, with one party holding such a dominant position and its continued lack of real transparency and oversight, will fulfill its promises on corruption remains to be seen. Until the public sees concrete action taken to tackle corruption and amend the laws that more or less make bribes legal, then all the vows and promises in the world will not help to convince anyone that things will ever change.
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
The international community was shocked when Israel was accused of launching an attack on Lebanon by rigging pagers to explode. Most media reports in Taiwan focused on whether the pagers were produced locally, arousing public concern. However, Taiwanese should also look at the matter from a security and national defense perspective. Lebanon has eschewed technology, partly because of concerns that countries would penetrate its telecommunications networks to steal confidential information or launch cyberattacks. It has largely abandoned smartphones and modern telecommunications systems, replacing them with older and relatively basic communications equipment. However, the incident shows that using older technology alone cannot
RSS