A Taiwan High Court judge and the president of a district court were disciplined for negligence of duty for failing to appeal on the behalf of a defendant who faced charges of robbery and manslaughter, the Judicial Yuan said on Wednesday.
The internal review committee of the Judicial Yuan ruled that Chiu Tung-yin (邱同印), a Taiwan High Court judge, would be given two demerits, while Miaoli District Court president Wen Yao-yuan (溫耀源) would be reprimanded twice.
The committee also decided to demote Wen, who had offered to resign and was granted the request on Monday, to a Taiwan High Court judge.
“I have nothing to say,” Wen said after learning the results of the ruling. “I should take responsibility for the credibility of the individual and the justice system.”
At issue was the case of Chen Tai-yi (陳泰益), who was convicted for the 2001 robbery of an International Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, which later changed its name to Mega International Commercial Bank after a merger) branch in New Taipei City (新北市). During the robbery, a ranking official of the branch was shot and killed.
The court sentenced Chen to death in the first trial. During the third re-trial at the High Court, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He said at the time that he would forgo appeal.
Chiu, who was judging the case at the time, failed to appeal on Chen’s behalf, which was his official duty.
Wen, who was then chief judge, endorsed Chiu’s decision.
The matter only came to light after a judge found earlier this month that there was a serious flaw in the proceedings. The defendant has already served eight years in prison.
Meanwhile, a court clerk was given two demerits and dismissed after he was found to have concealed more than 100 criminal cases over a period of eight years, the Taoyuan District Court ruled on Monday.
The court said that the clerk, surnamed Chang, did not turn cases over as the law demanded. As a result, five defendants escaped jail terms because of the expiration of their legal prosecution periods.
The court is also trying to determine if Chang’s deeds are due to negligence, or whether he was involved in other irregularities.
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Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry