Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) stepped down last night over his alleged use of influence to stop a prosecutor from appealing a breach of trust case involving Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) after Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) allegedly asked a favor of him for Ker.
Tseng’s announcement of his resignation at a 9:47pm press conference came only after Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) took the issue to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) earlier yesterday evening, after Tseng expressed no intention of resigning during a 70-minute meeting with Jiang, starting at 3:30pm, sources said.
After returning from his meeting with Ma, Jiang scheduled a second meeting with Tseng that began at 7:25pm and lasted for 45 minutes.
Photo: CNA
At the press conference, Tseng reiterated his statement that the allegations against him were "groundless."
Shame on those who fabricated the allegations against him, he said, adding that he decided to resign for the sake of the ministry and that "because I didn’t want to cause [my] superiors trouble."Ma and Jiang both said Tseng’s resignation was approved.
Earlier yesterday, Ma expressed distress over Tseng’s and High Court Prosecutors’ Office Head Prosecutor Chen Shou-huang’s (陳守煌) alleged involvement in illegal lobbying and said the government would not tolerate political manipulation of judicial cases.
“President Ma is shocked and saddened by the incident. The president believes that justice is the foundation of trust for the government and the last line of defense for social justice. There’s no room for political interference in any judicial case,” Presidential Office spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏) said.
The Presidential Office did not mention Wang and declined to comment on speculation that Ma was using the incident to weaken Wang’s political influence and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) old power bloc.
Lee said Ma has instructed related agencies to spare no efforts to investigate the case and clarify the situation.
The KMT yesterday also maintained a low-key attitude in response to the case and said it would wait for the results of the investigation when asked whether the party would address the alleged involvement of Wang, a KMT member, in illegal lobbying.
Some KMT members expressed concern about the impact of Wang’s lobbying on the party’s reputation and said the KMT should handle the case carefully.
The KMT revoked the party memberships of former Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世) and Taipei City Councilor Lai Su-ju (賴素如) earlier this year over their alleged involvement in bribery cases. The KMT did not say whether it would use party regulations against Wang.
Wang does not have a position within the KMT, but as legislative speaker and a key figure in the party’s localization factions, he has had great influence over the party.
Wang also represents the KMT’s old power bloc, along with party heavyweights including former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), and has had problematic relations with Ma in the wake of fierce competition over the KMT chairmanship in 2005.
The alleged influence-peddling case was made public by the Special Investigation Division (SID) earlier yesterday in a text message informing the press about the news conference that said: “You do not want to miss it.”
Commenting on the matter, KMT Legislator Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井) said he saw it as “sheer infighting” in the government’s judiciary system.
Tseng and Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) have had a frosty relationship, caused partly by Tseng having rejected Huang’s suggestions for the appointments of a number of chief prosecutors, Liao said.
The SID, led by Huang, was driven by the “mindset of revenge” against Tseng to look into the case, Liao added.
The allegations against Tseng deserved to be investigated, but that did not make the infighting situation less worrisome, Liao said.
Liao also expressed concerns over eavesdropping on and surveillance of lawmakers by SID prosecutors, saying that the actions have contradicted the SID’s repeated pledges not to do so.
KMT Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) held a different view, saying the SID should continue its investigation into the case to get to the bottom of what were the roles the accused had played in the case.
Some KMT members, including KMT Policy Committee head Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) and Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟), spoke up for Wang, saying the SID’s statement failed to prove that Wang had illegally exerted his influence to urge the SID to drop the case. There is a gray area between legal lobbying and influence peddling, they said.
The DPP caucus said the SID’s referral of Tseng to the Control Yuan for possible impeachment was unprecedented, a case in which prosecutors referred a government official to the government watchdog, which violated the separation of powers under the Constitution.
“It seemed to me that it was an internal struggle of the Ma administration — infighting between Ma and Wang and between Huang and Tseng,” said DPP Legislator Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡), a former judge.
The longstanding tension between Huang and Tseng has been an open secret, but it was suspicious that the SID called the press conference when Wang was out of the country, Wu added.
It was also unusual for the SID to announce the results of its investigation, but decide not to probe further into Wang and Ker, citing legislative self-discipline, Wu said.
Commenting on the matter, Lin Feng-jeng (林峰正), executive director of the Judicial Reform Foundation, said it was strange the SID was in a rush to announce the investigation despite Tseng and Chen not having been summoned for investigation.
Lin added that he could not care less about whether the investigation was politically motivated because the important thing was if the influence peddling occurred.
ACTION PLAN: Taiwan would expand procurement from the US and encourage more companies to invest in the US to deepen bilateral cooperation, Lai said The government would not impose reciprocal tariffs in retaliation against US levies, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, as he announced five strategies to address the issue, including pledging to increase Taiwanese companies’ investments in the US. Lai has in the past few days met with administrative and national security officials, as well as representatives from various industries, to explore countermeasures after US President Donald Trump on Wednesday last week announced a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese imports. In a video released yesterday evening, Lai said that Taiwan would not retaliate against the US with higher tariffs and Taiwanese companies’ commitments to
‘SPECIAL CHANNEL’: Taipei’s most important tasks are to stabilize industries affected by Trump’s trade tariffs and keep negotiations with Washington open, a source said National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) arrived in the US for talks with US President Donald Trump’s administration, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. Wu was leading a delegation for a meeting known as the “special channel,” the Financial Times reported earlier. It marked Trump’s first use of the channel since returning to the White House on Jan. 20. Citing a source familiar with the matter, the Financial Times reported that Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) was also a part of the delegation. The visit came days after China concluded war games around Taiwan and amid Trump’s
Intelligence agents have recorded 510,000 instances of “controversial information” being spread online by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so far this year, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report yesterday, as it warned of artificial intelligence (AI) being employed to generate destabilizing misinformation. The bureau submitted a written report to the Legislative Yuan in preparation for National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen’s (蔡明彥) appearance before the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee today. The CCP has been using cognitive warfare to divide Taiwanese society by commenting on controversial issues such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investments in the
HELPING HAND: The steering committee of the National Stabilization Fund is expected to hold a meeting to discuss how and when to utilize the fund to help buffer the sell-off The TAIEX plunged 2,065.87 points, or 9.7 percent, to close at 19,232.35 yesterday, the highest single-day percentage loss on record, as investors braced for US President Donald Trump’s tariffs after an extended holiday weekend. Amid the pessimistic atmosphere, 945 listed companies led by large-cap stocks — including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Largan Precision Co (大立光) — fell by the daily maximum of 10 percent at the close, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The number of listed companies ending limit-down set a new record, the exchange said. The TAIEX plunged by daily maxiumu in just
RSS