President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) raised eyebrows recently when it was revealed that his lawyer had filed a letter of committal for trial to the Taipei District Court with regard to a forgery lawsuit Ma filed against Prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen (侯寬仁) in January last year.
Hou was one of the prosecutors probing Ma’s handling of his special allowance funds when Ma was Taipei mayor, minister of justice, vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council and other posts.
Ma accused Hou of inaccurately documenting his questioning of Wu Li-ju (吳麗洳), a Taipei City Government treasurer, about how Ma used his special mayoral fund.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUI, TAIPEI TIMES
‘BIAS’
Last year Ma asked the court to remove three prosecutors from his cases, citing “bias,” but State Public Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) rejected the request.
The Presidential Office defended Ma’s decision to go after Hou, arguing that the move was not out of personal interest but to serve as an example to others.
Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) said she respected the president’s right to do so.
Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said Hou might deserve scrutiny, but he alone must not be targeted.
Lu is also under investigation for her use of the special allowance fund during her stint as Taoyuan County commissioner. Lu urged Ma to help all those embroiled in cases involving the discretionary fund, which she described as a “historic glitch.”
Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) criticized Ma for sabotaging the constitutional system, saying Ma should step down and give up his presidential immunity before filing the appeal.
Judicial Reform Foundation executive director Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠) said that he did not see how Ma would benefit from the lawsuit or how, in Ma’s word, his decision would serve the public interest.
Kao said he did not blame Ma’s legal advisers for making such a suggestion, but Ma — a law graduate and seasoned politician — did not seem to have the political wisdom to make the best decision.
It would be a lose-lose situation for Ma, Kao said, because the public would doubt the impartiality of the court if Ma wins, and Ma would put himself in an awkward position if he loses.
Statistics show that the odds of Ma winning the case are one in a thousand, Kao said, adding that he was “99 percent sure the court would turn down Ma’s request.”
Kao said legally Ma had the right to go after Hou as a civilian, but the question was whether it was necessary for the president to desert administrative means and seek justice in court.
As prosecutors are civil servants, Kao said Ma could have the justice minister or state public prosecutor-general mete out punishment had Hou done anything wrong.
Ma could also make efforts to improve the evaluation system of prosecutors, strengthen their exit mechanism or ask the government watchdog, the Control Yuan, to step in.
With its legislative majority, Kao said Ma could also ask the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to amend the laws and make the system better rather than seeking personal justice at the expense of others.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Kao said the system of committal for trial was problematic and flawed, with some criminal litigation experts considering it unconstitutional.
While the prosecutor, in this case Hou, was cleared of the forgery charges by the district court and high court, the accused, in this case Ma, requested another court to decide the propriety of the rulings of the district and high courts.
“It is like having the player be the umpire,” he said. “I don’t know how the president’s appeal would help improve the judiciary.”
Chen Yen-hui (陳延輝), a professor at National Taiwan Normal University’s Graduate Institute of Political Science, said Ma could have the Ministry of Justice or state public prosecutor-general punish Hou had he forged the document in question, adding that Ma would not have any problem seeing Hou dismissed if Ma’s claim proved true.
“But I find Ma’s decision very strange,” Chen said. “I thought the president’s job was to deal with daily state affairs, but it seems he is more concerned about how to make all prosecutors do what he wants.”
By going after Hou, Chen said Ma was sending out a message to other prosecutors that he cannot be touched, or they would end up like Hou.
If Ma was serious about judicial reform, Chen said he could hire someone he trusts to do the job, but what he was doing now seemed to be “killing the chicken to scare the monkeys.”
Huang Chii-chen (黃啟禎), a law professor at Tunghai University, said if Ma meant what he said by serving the public interest, he should revamp the system so more people would benefit from it.
Ma’s move might draw much media attention, but it also intimidated the judiciary, Huang said.
While Ma has said he wanted to see prosecutors record the questioning process more accurately, Huang said he had not seen Ma present any concrete measure to achieve this goal.
“His argument makes sense, but between coming after a prosecutor and amending the law, it is more appropriate for the president to choose the latter,” he said.
“There shouldn’t be any problem for the KMT to revise any law because it enjoys a majority in the legislature,” he said.
Lin Ming-hsin (林明昕), a law professor at National Taiwan University, said that from the legal viewpoint, the president was entitled to sue anyone, and it was his right to justify such an action.
JUDGMENT
“For the president, he must make the best political judgment possible,” he said.
From the non-legal point of view, Lin said he did not see any meaning to Ma’s move except for political considerations.
Lin said that he suspected it was a scheme aimed at using his old litigation to revitalize public interest in the legal case against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
RSS