The tainted oil scandals involving Chang Guann Co and Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co have had a major negative effect on the nation’s food industry.
When the heavy 22-year prison sentence meted out to Yeh Wen-hsiang (葉文祥), chairman of the old and well-established oil brand Chang Guann, was finalized, he drank detergent in an apparent attempt to take his life, although the hospital reported that he was not in a critical condition.
Leaving aside speculation about whether Yeh was trying to postpone the start of his sentence, there is another interesting aspect of the case.
Former Ting Hsin chairman Wei Ying-chung (魏應充) was also accused of mixing inferior oil into the company’s products, but while Yeh was sentenced to 22 years in prison, Wei was given a not-guilty verdict.
The discrepancy raises concerns about the impartiality of the judiciary.
Yeh and Wei were accused of mixing inferior oil into their company’s products and of violating Article 15 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), which stipulates that foods or food additives that, among other things, have been adulterated or counterfeited should not be manufactured, processed, prepared, packaged, transported, stored, sold, imported, exported, presented as a gift or publicly displayed.
Yeh’s sentence was based on this article and on the fraud regulations in the Criminal Code.
However, in the case against Wei — who served as vice chairman of the National Business and Industrial Leaders’ Support Group for former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — the court raised the prosecutors’ burden of proof by demanding evidence that the oil “could be suspected to have a negative effect on physical health,” a requirement with no legal basis.
Although the two cases were similar, the court came to the conclusion that Wei was not guilty.
In Chang Guann’s case, the court ruled that Yeh’s actions violated fraud regulations in Article 339-4 of the Criminal Code and articles 15 and 49 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation.
However, in Ting Hsin’s case, the court ruled that the prosecutor had not provided substantive evidence showing that the Vietnamese company Dai Hanh Phuc Co had bought and used oil from individual contractors that was made from uninspected pigs that had died from disease, which was then imported by Ting Hsin.
Therefore, Wei and others who stood accused of having violated Article 49 of the food safety act by selling adulterated or counterfeited products were not guilty.
Yeh and Wei were both charged with mixing inferior oil into their products, yet Wei was set free, while Yeh was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Yeh is probably not the only one to question whether the scales of justice lean toward the rich and powerful.
Huang Di-ying is a lawyer.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS