Article 14(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that criminal suspects are entitled to a “competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law,” while Article 14(3) states that a defendant should “have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defense and to communicate with counsel of his own choosing.”
On the basis of these articles and the arguments of members of Taiwan’s legal community, there is now a reasonable suspicion that former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) entitlements under the covenant have been compromised.
We have already expressed concern at the extraordinary decision of the Taipei District Court to remove a judge hearing one of Chen’s cases in a streamlining of legal hearings involving the defendant.
This action has been described as ordinary court procedure, but the decision resulted in a new judge detaining Chen on substantially identical arguments from the prosecution and followed pressure from government legislators — including Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅), a convicted felon and member of the legislative committee dealing with judicial matters — and took place more than a week after ordinary procedure might have dealt with the matter, according to the Judicial Reform Foundation.
Chiu Yi’s threat to impeach the original judge after he released Chen from custody was not, to the best of our knowledge, repudiated by senior KMT officials, government officials or the justice minister — a stunning silence and a most regrettable development.
These actions have disturbed respected members of Taiwan’s legal and academic community, including the president of the Judicial Reform Foundation and others with judicial responsibilities and experience.
Yesterday’s news, however, that prosecutors have ignored the advice of the Taipei Bar Association and will investigate Chen’s lawyer, Cheng Wen-lung (鄭文龍) — based in part on tapes of his conversations with the president in custody — indicates the case is firming in a direction that augurs farce.
At the same time, the court has taken no substantial action over the consistent leaking of prosecutorial data to the media. That all this was taking place even as the authorities monitored client-counsel communication amounts to a violation of the defendant’s right to “adequate … facilities for the preparation of his defense.”
If a court fails to protect the right of a defendant to a fair trial, then the tragedy is everyone’s. When that defendant is a former head of a state, however, judicial misconduct or the reasonable perception thereof would bring the entire system into disrepute and threaten to destroy confidence in verdicts of cases with political overtones, if not verdicts in general.
That is to say, if the prosecution of the former president continues in this manner, then widespread fears of a reversion to a martial law-style juridical environment risk vindication. And if a large proportion of the Taiwanese population has reason to believe that the courts are willing to intimidate defense counsel and cannot ensure impartiality, then the political and social consequences could be dire.
There have been so many bizarre, inexplicable and chilling incidents in Chen’s cases to date that the immediate preparation of a submission to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) appears justified, if not essential. There is now sufficient prima facie evidence of harassment of jurists, targeting of lawyers and compromised judicial independence to satisfy the criteria for ICJ intervention.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS