Officials of the Formosa Plastics Corporation (台塑) involved in a case pertaining to the transportation of mercury-tainted waste to Cambodia in 1998 were found innocent by the Taiwan High Court yesterday.
The verdict immediately provoked environmentalists, who said that the legal system is clearly stacked against the environment and the people and in favor of corporate Taiwan.
"We are very sorry over the verdict, because it failed to take into account the public's vulnerability to firms which lack even a semblance of social responsibility," Green Formosa Front (GFF) Chairman Wu Tung-Jye (吳東傑) told the Taipei Times.
At the Kaohsiung Branch of the High Court, Wu protested the verdict with other environmentalists from groups including the Kaohsiung-based Takao Hill Association for National Parks and the Kaohsiung City Teachers' Association.
The activists said that the verdict reflected the government's policy of promoting economic development by putting the public's well-being at risk.
In November 1998, Formosa Plastics contracted Taipei-based waste handler Jade Fortune Ltd (璟福) to ship 2,799.3 tonnes of mercury-tainted waste labeled as "cement cake [scrap]" to Cambodia.
Succumbing to international pressure, Cambodia shipped the waste -- along with the soil it had contaminated when it was dumped, totalling 4,600 tonnes -- back to Taiwan in 1999.
Environmentalists of the GFF criticized the company for lacking social responsibility and filed a lawsuit against Formosa Plastics and the waste handler.
Yesterday's verdict upholds a previous verdict of the Kaohsiung District Court last October.
At the time, the judge handed down a 14-month sentence for forgery to Huang Jing-fu (黃景福) of the waste handler. Huang's colleague, Chang Kuo-lung (張國隆), received a 12-month sentence for forgery.
Meanwhile, three officials of Formosa Plastics, including Lin Hsien-jing (林先景), Cheng Ruey-teng (陳瑞騰) and Wang Chien-yuan (王建元), were found not guilty. The judge said that there was no evidence showing that the three falsified information about the waste before handing it off to the handler.
Prosecutors then appealed to the High Court for a retrial, asking it to take into account the officials' neglect in regard to the inappropriate management of hazardous waste.
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) analysis of the mercury-tainted waste, collected in Cambodia by GFF activists in 1998, was submitted to the High Court for reference.
The EPA results show the samples contained a mercury content exceeding Taiwan's national standards.
The High Court said yesterday that it was upholding the previous verdict based on a lack of new evidence. No new trial is planned in the forgery case either, according to a judge.
Kao Jin-chih (
"The appellant has difficulties in providing evidence showing that the toxicity of the original Formosa Plastics waste, which was to be shipped to Cambodia from Taiwan, exceeded national standards," Kao said.
Activists told the media that the samples were collected at a site in Cambodia, exactly where the Formosa Plastics mercury-tainted waste was dumped.
"Environmental justice was obviously set aside when the High Court processed the case under the constraints of the present legal system," activist Yang Ping-yu (
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