A former High Court judge has been impeached for alleged inappropriate contact with a businessman involved in multiple civil and criminal lawsuits from 1997 to 2017, the Control Yuan said on Thursday.
Control Yuan members on Thursday last week voted unanimously to impeach Tseng Ping-shan (曾平杉), who had served on the court’s Tainan branch from June 1997 to December 2013, the Control Yuan said in a statement.
During his term in office, Tseng was found to have socialized with Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-chairman of textile producer Chia Her Group, and accepted gifts from him, the Control Yuan said.
Weng’s diary showed that Tseng met with him on Aug. 9, 2001, to provide him with legal advice about a then-ongoing litigation case Weng was involved in, the statement said.
The former judge from 1995 to 1998 had owned shares in Chia Yuen Real Estate Development Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her Group, it said.
Tseng provided legal advice and accepted gifts from Weng, the Control Yuan said.
Although he did not preside over Weng’s cases, Tseng’s actions breached the Public Functionary Service Act (公務員服務法) and the Judges Act (法官法), as well as ethical regulations and guidelines for judges, it said.
After impeaching Tseng, the Control Yuan transferred the case to the Disciplinary Court for trial, it said.
The relationship between Tseng and Weng was discovered during a Judicial Yuan investigation into allegations of corruption against Shih Mu-chin (石木欽), a former head of the Public Functionary Disciplinary Sanction Commission, which later became the Disciplinary Court, and Shih’s relationship with Weng.
Despite not being found guilty of corruption, Shih is the highest-ranking judicial official to ever be impeached in Taiwan.
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