It came as no surprise to hear that the pan-blue camp and Shih Ming-teh (施明德) decried the decision by the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office not to press charges against first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) over the so-called Sogo vouchers scandal.
After all, the investigation would never have taken place were it not for the seemingly endless allegations made against her by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator and self-styled corruption buster Chiu Yi (
But even if Wu actually did peddle her influence in return for the vouchers, surely Chiu understands it is up to him to present concrete evidence of such or find a reliable witness willing to testify against Wu -- instead of relying on wild accusations.
You would have thought the pan-blues would have learnt their lesson after the farcical 319 shooting investigation, where rumors, groundless accusations and laughable conspiracy theories failed to convince the nation's judiciary that the president was behind his own shooting.
But then it must be hard for the KMT and its allies to adjust to a legal system where the burden of proof lies with the accuser, when for 40 years during the White Terror period they enjoyed the power of kangaroo courts, in which a mere accusation was often enough to get someone a long stretch in prison or even a death sentence.
It seems they still have trouble getting used to living in a democracy where the judiciary is independent, people have to abide by the law and one cannot win every election.
Henry Blackhand
Taipei
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
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