The Ministry of Justice yesterday denied reports that the judge in former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) embezzlement and corruption case would be switched again.
The denial came after Chinese-language weekly Next Magazine reported that a recent meeting of the Council of Grand Justices reached a consensus that the decision to relieve Judge Chou Chan-chun (周占春) of Chen’s case and hand it over to Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) was unconstitutional.
The case may be returned to Chou, and Chen could be released from detention as early as next month, the magazine reported.
When Chou was presiding over Chen’s case last year, he twice ruled against detaining Chen, saying that Chen had no opportunity to flee because as a former president he was constantly protected and escorted by special agents.
However, when the case was switched to Tsai, he repeatedly ruled to keep the former president behind bars because he said Chen might collude with witnesses or try to abscond.
In December last year, a panel of judges ordered that Chou be replaced by Tsai, who would preside over the four new cases filed against the former president. The switch was controversial and skeptics questioned whether the decision to merge the trials was procedurally flawed and politically motivated.
Chen’s lawyer Shih Yi-ling (石宜琳) yesterday said he would be glad to see the grand justices rule Chen’s detainment was against the law.
“If the grand justices rule that the former president’s case was procedurally flawed, it would have a positive impact on litigation rights,” Shih said.
In response, the ministry denied reports of any plans to hand the cases back to Chou.
“The grand justices are still in the process of gathering and sifting through the information,” ministry spokesperson Hsieh Wen-ting (謝文定) said.
He said there was no timeline on when the grand justices would announce their ruling.
When asked for comment, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) said: “They [grand justices] should not make a constitutional interpretation that contradicts mainstream public opinion.”
Saying that 10 of the 15 Grand Justices were nominated by the former president, Lee said: “This is not the time for you to repay [Chen] for his nomination.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS