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 (
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS