A new system requiring that all closed investigations on national security violations be forwarded to the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office is to take effect next month.
Hopefully it will give the prosecutorial system more efficient means to identify Chinese espionage and establish countermeasures, Chief High Prosecutor Hsing Tai-chao (邢泰釗) said.
Tai Wen-liang (戴文亮), executive secretary of the Prosecution of Severe National Security and Social Order Offenses Section, would lead efforts to review and analyze all offenses, seeking to link individuals, places, modi operandi and cash flow, Hsing said on Friday.
A lack of interdepartmental communication resulted in each agency focusing only on cases involving itself, but if agencies worked together, it would be easier to judge whether cases are individual incidents, or parts of a greater, more organized case, Hsing said.
The section would also alert agencies to areas in which they could improve, and prosecute civil servants if they have contravened the law, he added.
A prosecutor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that district prosecutors’ offices are bound by law not to share information on cases pertaining to national security, adding that there is a necessity for the High Prosecutors’ Office to step in and coordinate investigations.
By law, the High Prosecutors’ Office can only investigate crimes regarding sedition or foreign espionage under the Criminal Code, while the district prosecutors’ offices are tasked with investigating and prosecuting national security cases in breach of other laws, including the six national security laws, the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) and the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例).
As most sentences handed out for contravening these laws are less than three years in prison, if the prosecutor concludes the case without indicting the individual, the case does not have to be forwarded to the next prosecution level.
A seminar last month discussed the judicial and prosecutorial processes for national security cases, and why those found guilty received a far lighter sentence than expected, even when definitive information had been given to prosecutors.
Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥), who attended the seminar, said that national security and information security teams should consider working more closely with the judiciary, especially on matters of presenting information as evidence and how to present such evidence in court.
The six national security laws are the Criminal Code, the National Security Act (國家安全法), the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍刑法), the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), the Trade Secrets Act (營業祕密法) and the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法).
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