A passage in ancient Chinese text Guanzi (管子) says: “Laws are the yardsticks of all realms and the guidelines of all things.”
The 4,258 forgeries in the recall petitions initiated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) were more than unauthorized signatures; each of them commandeered the voice of a citizen deserving of respect. The counterfeits were not done by one person, but by a local chapter of a major political party mobilizing its workers to copy membership lists, hide evidence and corroborate their statements. They broke the rule of law, the basis of Taiwan’s democratic system and the last vestige of trust voters have in political parties.
As a mother, I expect my children to be honest, responsible and respectful. As they receive education on their civic duties and learn of the valuable and dignified democratic process, they are also witnessing members of the largest opposition party falsifying signatures, destroying evidence, colluding and slandering.
Under such circumstance, how credible would freedom, rule of law and fairness be in the future?
The forgery case at the Taichung KMT chapter was not an accident, but an organized contravention. Since the start of the recall campaigns in mid-January, KMT Taichung chapter executive director Wu Kang-lung (伍康龍) and secretary-general Chen Chien-feng (陳劍鋒) allegedly drafted the scheme. They allegedly ordered party workers and volunteers to falsify signatures based on the chapter’s membership list.
When the investigation began, most of the 34 party workers had denied the allegations brought against them; they deleted chat records, but eventually confessed to prosecutors and pleaded guilty in the first hearing last week.
They said that the KMT headquarters had commanded them to retaliate against the mass recall, so they took the task upon themselves due to time constraints. However, partisan instructions do not supersede the law, and political parties should not falsify signatures of their members for recall petitions.
It was like an experiment conducted by a political party, in which it used its total moral collapse to test how low the bar could go for Taiwanese voters. As party workers engage in sophistry, saying that they did not act against the will of party members, we cannot let these contraveners get off scot-free.
The damage this case caused to our democratic system could not be overlooked, the indictment said.
If the justice system hands out light sentences, it would make the public more distrustful of the government. More worryingly, as all 34 party workers provided the same statement, they could be guilty of collusion and collective destruction of evidence, and they might have received direction from high-level officials.
Prosecutors and the court must investigate further. The pursuit of truth should not end because the defendants pleaded guilty in hope of receiving a lighter sentence. After all, when a political party dares to desecrate people’s sacred and democratic right to recall by reducing it to a vehicle for falsification, it is a sign that democracy is no longer secure.
Tell the courts it is not just a couple of KMT cadres contravening the law, but the entire party that has betrayed the trust of voters. We hope that the justice system would draw a clear line between law and an obsession with power, so that those who have trampled on democracy through their political maneuvers bear actual responsibility. The root of democracy should not be soiled by false statements and signatures.
Nu Ying is a social worker.
Translated by Cayce Pan
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