With President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) second and final term set to expire next month, whether he would pardon former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) before he steps down on May 20 has become a topic of debate.
Following the motions by the Kaohsiung City Council last week and the Tainan City Council last month urging Ma to pardon his predecessor, Taipei City Councilor Chiang Chih-ming’s (江志銘) similar appeal yesterday requesting a presidential pardon for Chen also garnered the support of 26 Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei city councilors, who agreed that Ma, by doing so, can help bring about reconciliation between the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
However, the Presidential Office rejected the calls to pardon Chen, saying that several cases involving Chen have yet to be finalized. Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said that Chen must first plead guilty before president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) could consider granting him a special pardon.
Chen, on medical parole since Jan. 5 last year after serving six years of a 20-year sentence for graft convictions related to his presidency, said the charges against him are part of a political vendetta by the KMT government in retaliation for his eight years in power promoting Taiwanese independence.
After his second term ended in 2008, Chen was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 for money laundering and bribery — a term reduced to 20 years after appeals. Yet Chen’s trial, as well as the investigation and prosecution of his cases, have been criticized as being dotted with procedural flaws.
Rather than dwelling on the subject of whether Chen should be granted a special pardon, to ensure fair treatment for Chen, it would be more fitting for the incoming government to set up a special committee to examine if there really were any procedural flaws, or even political interference, in the trial of the former president.
During Chen’s corruption and money laundering trial, a panel of judges in December 2008 ordered that Judge Chou Chan-chun (周占春) be replaced by Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓).
The switch led to speculation that the decision was procedurally flawed and politically motivated, prompting then-president of the Yilan District Court Huang Jui-hua (黃瑞華) and then-Shilin District Court judge Hung Ying-hua (洪英花) to criticize the decision and the procedures as flawed.
Hung said at the time that because changing the judges was illegal, Tsai’s guilty verdicts were invalid.
There were also media reports at the time alleging the Special Investigation Division prosecutors had “told” Chinatrust Charity Foundation chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒) what to say in court and offered Koo, who was involved in a scandal over Chinatrust’s bid to buy rival Mega Financial Holdings Co, immunity in exchange for his testimony in Chen’s case.
If Tsai is sincere in her pledge that her administration would pursue fairness and justice, then all the questionable judicial proceedings dotting Chen’s trials should be re-examined to grant Chen due justice. By reinvestigating these cases, Tsai could also realize her pledge of pursuing transitional justice by overhauling the nation’s judicial system and bringing anyone who abused judicial authority and used the judiciary as a political tool to justice.
Granting Chen a presidential pardon would be tantamount to acknowledging that he is guilty of the charges against him.
As Chen and his supporters say that the charges against him were leveled due to a political vendetta by the KMT government, a new investigation should be conducted to determine if there was a miscarriage of justice during Ma’s term and restore justice for Chen.
World leaders are preparing themselves for a second Donald Trump presidency. Some leaders know more or less where he stands: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy knows that a difficult negotiation process is about to be forced on his country, and the leaders of NATO countries would be well aware of being complacent about US military support with Trump in power. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely be feeling relief as the constraints placed on him by the US President Joe Biden administration would finally be released. However, for President William Lai (賴清德) the calculation is not simple. Trump has surrounded himself
US president-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named US Representative Mike Waltz, a vocal supporter of arms sales to Taiwan who has called China an “existential threat,” as his national security advisor, and on Thursday named US Senator Marco Rubio, founding member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China — a global, cross-party alliance to address the challenges that China poses to the rules-based order — as his secretary of state. Trump’s appointments, including US Representative Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the UN, who has been a strong supporter of Taiwan in the US Congress, and Robert Lighthizer as US trade
Following the BRICS summit held in Kazan, Russia, last month, media outlets circulated familiar narratives about Russia and China’s plans to dethrone the US dollar and build a BRICS-led global order. Each summit brings renewed buzz about a BRICS cross-border payment system designed to replace the SWIFT payment system, allowing members to trade without using US dollars. Articles often highlight the appeal of this concept to BRICS members — bypassing sanctions, reducing US dollar dependence and escaping US influence. They say that, if widely adopted, the US dollar could lose its global currency status. However, none of these articles provide
On Friday last week, tens of thousands of young Chinese took part in a bike ride overnight from Henan Province’s Zhengzhou (鄭州) to the historical city of Kaifeng in search of breakfast. The night ride became a viral craze after four female university students in June chronicled their ride on social media from Zhengzhou in search of soup dumplings in Kaifeng. Propelled by the slogan “youth is priceless,” the number of nocturnal riders surged to about 100,000 on Friday last week. The main road connecting the two cities was crammed with cyclists as police tried to maintain order. That sparked
RSS