The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday lamented what it called “the death” of the nation’s constitutional system, which it ascribed to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office’s decision to indict former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Speaking at a news conference in Taipei, KMT caucus convener Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) said that as the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法) entitles the president to declassify information, Ma’s handling of confidential information regarding a wiretapping case should not have been deemed illegal.
Sufin was referring to Article 7 of the act, which stipulates that the president, premier and ministers authorized by them are allowed to classify information top secret, as well as Article 28, which stipulates that classified information may be declassified by the official who authorized the original classification, or their superior official.
Photo: Liao chen-huei, Taipei Times
Ma on Tuesday was indicted on charges of leaking classified information and abuse of authority.
He is accused of divulging details to two government officials of wiretapped telephone conversations between then-legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) during a then-ongoing investigation into alleged improper lobbying in 2013.
It is preposterous that the people who sought to damage judicial justice by engaging in improper political lobbying got off scot-free, while the person who tried to deal with wrongdoings is facing indictment, KMT Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) said.
“I solemnly urge the judicial system to refrain from playing politics,” she said.
The DPP has been interfering with the judicial system since former Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) on March 5 accused the judiciary of targeting only the pan-green camp, KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said
Chen also vowed to redress the what he described as the procedural injustice experienced by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who was found guilty of corruption and related charges and served more than six years of his 20-year prison term before his release on medical parole in January 2015.
“Shortly after that, the Supreme Administrative Court on Friday last week ruled against the KMT in a fund-freezing case. The verdict was followed by Ma’s indictment on Tuesday,” Lai said, adding that Chen Shih-meng’s remarks have apparently had a chilling effect.
In related news, the Taipei District Court yesterday made public the computer-generated random number draw that decided which judge would review Ma’s case.
The judge picked, Tang Yueh (唐玥) oversaw a case involving the beating death of a police detective a Taipei nightclub in 2014.
Additional Reporting by Chang Wen-chuan
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift