Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday condemned outgoing Judicial Yuan Vice President Su Yeong-chin (蘇永欽) as an impediment to judicial reform, reminding the public of his record of political interference in the justice system and his work to oppose democratic changes.
“Su Yeong-chin has been among the worst of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s [KMT] officials to interfere and pervert our nation’s justice system. He has been the ‘dirty hand’ behind the scenes for the party to manipulate the judiciary, to protect the KMT’s interests and protect [former president] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) from prosecution,” DPP Legislator Tsai Yu-yi (蔡易餘) said.
Tsai and other DPP lawmakers held a news conference after Su made his resignation public earlier this week.
Su accused President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of interfering with the judicial system and alleged that she had no constitutional mandate for judicial reform.
“We welcome your [Su’s] decision to resign. Please leave the Judicial Yuan for the good of our nation,” Tsai Yu-yi said. “Only when Su has left the post will people have the opportunity to achieve real judicial reform.”
Tsai Yu-yi alleged that Su pressured the judiciary to block a retrial request of Taipei’s MeHAS City (美河市) project case in which then-Taipei mayor Ma was suspected of corruption and impropriety to the benefit of real-estate developer Radium Life Tech Co.
DPP Legislator Su Cheng-ching (蘇震清) referenced a record showing that Su Yeong-chin opposed the drafting of the Political Party Act (政黨法) in 1987, which was aimed at easing restrictions imposed by the KMT to permit the development of a multi-party democracy.
“In legal circles, it was well-known that Su [Yeong-chin] had long ago abandoned the ethical principles that should be upheld by a lawyer. People knew him as working to preserve the power and privileges of the KMT, and to justify the continual authoritarian rule of the nation under the KMT,” Su Cheng-ching said.
He said that in the 1980s, Su Yeong-chin wrote articles to justify the KMT’s use of the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion (動員戡亂時期臨時條款), which was used in the Martial Law era to crack down on dissent and detain any suspicious persons on sedition charges without due judicial process.
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