There is a saying that goes: “You only know where to go if you know where you come from.” Apparently, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, does not have a clue where he comes from.
In the first of three platform presentations for presidential candidates, Han said: “President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is filled with corrupt government officials and it even shut down the Special Investigation Division (SID),” adding that he would reinstate the division if elected.
As an undergraduate in political science and a future lawyer, I was astounded when I heard of Han’s intent to reopen the notorious division. I would like to refresh Han and his supporters’ memories:
Taiwan has been a universally respected and loved democracy that has created a society that follows the rule of law. One of the key elements of democracy is the principle of separation of powers. In a constitutional democracy, one constitutional power must respect the others to prevent abuses of power.
For example, the executive branch should respect the legislative branch. In 2013, the “September strife” between then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and then-legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) showed why the SID should be dissolved.
The reason is simple: Then-prosecutor-general Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) instructed the SID to wiretap the legislature’s switchboard, including a phone conversation between Wang and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), for a month without a strong legal basis or compelling reasons.
Before he closed the case, Huang demanded to report the situation to Ma without a specific legal mandate. Ma, along with then-premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), accepted Huang’s briefing.
At a news conference at SID headquarters a few days later, Huang accused Wang of accepting judicial lobbying by Ker.
Later on, as KMT chairman, Ma demanded Wang’s resignation and called a news conference at KMT headquarters, saying “I think Speaker Wang is no longer fit to be speaker of the Legislative Yuan. If the KMT fails to punish Wang by at least canceling his party membership and his status as a legislator-at-large and expel him from the Legislative Yuan, we in effect choose to tacitly accept that the judiciary’s dignity continues to be trampled on.”
There are three points to note:
First, Ma, as head of the executive branch, should have respected Wang, the head of the legislative branch. By demanding the speaker’s resignation, Ma violated the principle of separation of powers. As a Harvard Law School graduate, he should be ashamed of himself.
Second, and more intriguingly, Ma’s ace in the hole was to force Wang’s resignation by revoking his status as a legislator-at-large. The Legislative Yuan is a national constitutional institution, while the KMT is a civil association. On what grounds could a KMT chairman ask for the speaker’s resignation? Ma indeed lacked common sense.
Last and not least, no matter what happens, the president should not have accepted to be briefed by the prosecutor-general before a case was closed. It is called respect for the principle of non-disclosure of an investigation. Yet Ma was not only briefed twice by Huang, he also informed the premier of the situation.
The two executive heads worked in conjunction with the head of judicial prosecutors to cut off the legislative head. It brought shame to rule of law in Taiwan.
The SID, notoriously referred to as another Dong Chang, a Ming Dynasty secret police and spy agency, was the primary culprit behind this miserable lesson for our constitutional democracy.
Now, Han, as the KMT’s presidential nominee, is planning to reinstate the SID. As former US president Abraham Lincoln once said: “If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
It is inconceivable to imagine Han as president.
Han has revealed his character and that he does not know a thing about basic concepts of law. It is evident that he is not fit to be president and to lead Taiwan for the next four years. I would like to respectfully tell Mayor Han: He comes from a country that lives under the rule of law, not rule by law.
Huang Yu-zhe is an undergraduate in Soochow University’s Department of Political Science and has been accepted to National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Law and Interdisciplinary Studies.
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