A survey released by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday found that 46 percent of respondents believed that the judiciary wasn’t handling money laundering allegations against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) with impartiality.
The survey, conducted by telephone with 896 respondents of voting age on Wednesday and Thursday, found that 38.7 percent said the case was being handled fairly.
The margin of error for these survey results, to a 95 percent confidence level, is plus or minus 3.3 percent, the DPP said in its statement.
“The DPP is very supportive of the judiciary’s probe into the case according to the provisions of the laws but over the past two weeks, the judiciary has different versions of the sources of the funds ... Even now, it has no proof to show that the funds were income Chen obtained through corruption,” DPP Department of Culture and Information Director Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) told a press conference yesterday.
“The poll result showed that the public does not trust the judiciary’s handling of the case of former president Chen,” he said.
Cheng called for the judiciary to adopt a more conscientious approach in dealing with the case to prove that the nation’s judicial system is independent of politics and is able to protect the human rights of the people involved.
Cheng said the survey was also conducted to cross reference answers with party inclination to determine which categories of respondents were more likely to distrust the judiciary in handling this case.
It showed that 69 percent of supporters in favor of the DPP were suspicious of the impartiality of the judiciary, while 37.9 percent of pan-blue supporters and 40.9 percent of the respondents without party affiliation held the same opinion.
The results of the survey suggested there is a lack of public trust in the judiciary, Cheng said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to