Lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said yesterday that the summoning of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Thursday as a witness over leaking allegations highlighted the president’s lack of political judgement.
“The latest development in the wiretapping scandal shows a lack of political judgement on Ma’s part and a deficiency of legal experts in his decisionmaking team. It appears that these three men are the ones making all the calls, but none of them have a legal background except for Ma,” Koo said.
Koo, formerly a long-term legal adviser to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), was referring to the questioning of Ma, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Lo Chih-chang (羅致政) by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday as witnesses in a case involving Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming’s (黃世銘) alleged leaks of details gathered through the wiretapping of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) during an investigation in a case against Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
Huang is thus far the only person listed as a defendant in the investigation, triggered by the two meetings he had with Ma on Aug.31 and Sept.1 to discuss details of a probe into Wang’s alleged improper lobbying, which was not concluded until Sept.5. On Monday night, Huang also told the Chinese-language Apple Daily that Ma had phoned him after the Special Investigation Division’ press conference on Sept. 6, raising further questions about Ma’s role in pursuing the case.
Koo yesterday said what Huang is being accused of — including leaking details of an ongoing investigation and abusing wiretaps — has been deemed harmless in the past.
“However, when such conduct poses a threat to the constitutional role of the legislative speaker, people begin to adopt a stricter standard in scrutinizing them… and come to realize that the nation has been using wiretaps excessively and that our prosecutor-general has absolutely zero knowledge of constitutionalism,” Koo said.
In response to media inquiries about the likelihood of Ma being listed as a defendant in the alleged leaking case, Koo said since it is hard to prove that the president had the required mens rea to have instigated Huang to leak details of the case involving Wang, Huang might end up bearing the most responsibility for the alleged offense.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) yesterday authorized the execution of convicted murderer Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), the first death row prisoner to be put to death since President William Lai (賴清德) took office. Huang was to be executed via a firing squad yesterday evening, which would leave Taiwan with 36 convicts on death row. Huang on Oct. 1, 2013, broke into his ex-girlfriend Wang Ping-chih’s (王品智) residence in New Taipei City, where he raped and murdered Wang. He also killed Wang’s mother. Huang was bitter over the breakup and her accusation that he had stolen NT$200,000 (US$6,074) from her bank account, prosecutors said
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