The right to re-establish a special investigative division (SID) belongs to the judiciary, Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) said yesterday, after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi proposed setting up an “opposition party SID” to investigate government officials.
Prosecutors’ offices already exercise the powers of investigation and prosecution, Cheng said when asked by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) whether such a division is necessary or constitutional during a meeting of the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee.
The SID was established under the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in 2007 and abolished in 2017.
Photo: Chen Tsai-ling, Taipei Times
It was granted special powers to investigate corruption and financial misconduct by the president, vice president, the heads of the five branches of government, ministerial-level officials and generals.
The division’s wiretapping and other controversies led to political turmoil in 2013 involving then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then-legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and other prominent figures.
Lawmakers amended the Court Organization Act (法院組織法) to abolish the SID on Jan. 1, 2017.
The Ministry of Justice listed five major reasons to terminate the SID, including that its functions can be performed by existing prosecutors’ offices, Wu said.
“We therefore must not revive this agency, as it would interfere in the proper functioning of the legislature and other government branches,” she said.
Fu told reporters the party would not set up an SID with state funding, nor let the judiciary be in charge.
“It is up to opposition parties to take in ideas from all sides and join together to investigate all the major scandals over the past eight years,” Fu said.
Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Wednesday said that his party does not support the idea.
“Since campaigning last year, our party had opposed the SID. The nation’s laws must have consistency, fairness and equal application, so we should not have another special unit to investigate top government officials,” Ko said.
DPP Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) said the push to revive the SID is Fu’s way of avenging what he perceives as unfair targeting by the justice system on his cases of financial misconduct and other crimes in past two decades.
Fu went to prison twice in 2018 and 2020 for insider trading, stock manipulation and document forgery for a fraudulent divorce from his wife to enable her to serve as Hualien County commissioner after Fu was convicted and had to serve time in prison.
DPP Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) said re-establishing the SID would seriously harm judicial independence.
“For the SID to be revived under KMT control, it would be under the party’s political manipulation, and impossible to act with objectivity, fairness and equality toward all citizens,” Chen said.
“Legislators must not abuse their power to interfere in the proper functioning of the justice system,” he said.
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS