Control Yuan member Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) on Tuesday volunteered to investigate the Taiwan High Court’s acquittal of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to determine whether the judges had abused the principle of judicial discretion.
As the case involves a former president and has generated controversy, it should be looked into, especially as conflicting rulings have given rise to doubt over the judges’ legal basis, Chen said.
Ma has been accused of being complicit in encouraging then-prosecutor-general Huang Shyh-ming (黃世銘) to leak a transcript of a wiretapped conversation of Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) to then-premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and then-Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) in September 2013.
The wiretap was related to an ongoing investigation of Ker over alleged breaches of trust.
Ma was acquitted in the first trial, but the High Court sentenced him to four years in prison in the second trial, before acquitting him in a retrial on Friday last week.
In the latest ruling, the judges said that Ma had not abused his position as president to obtain the classified documents, nor had he instructed or encouraged Huang to leak them.
“Huang’s contravention of the law does not mean that Ma also broke the law,” the ruling said.
Ma said that the ruling upheld his innocence and clearly delineated the boundaries of a president’s executive power, which would serve as a point of reference for future presidents.
However, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, which prosecuted the case, alleged that the judges in the retrial had only summarily read through the previous indictment, rulings and evidence.
The original indictment said that Ma had illegally encouraged or ordered Huang to leak information to Jiang and Lo, neither of which were legally privy to such information, the office said.
However, the court mistakenly believed that the indictment attempted to prove the complicity of Huang and Ma, the office said.
By failing to rule on the content of the original indictment, the retrial should not be valid, as it was against the law, the office said, adding that it is mulling whether to launch an extraordinary appeal.
Meanwhile, lawyer Lin Hsien-tung (林憲同) on Tuesday brought malfeasance charges against Chang Hui-li (張惠立), the judge who presided over the High Court retrial, alleging that he wanted to exculpate Ma.
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