President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) raised eyebrows recently when it was revealed that his lawyer had filed a letter of committal for trial to the Taipei District Court with regard to a forgery lawsuit Ma filed against Prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen (侯寬仁) in January last year.
Hou was one of the prosecutors probing Ma’s handling of his special allowance funds when Ma was Taipei mayor, minister of justice, vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council and other posts.
Ma accused Hou of inaccurately documenting his questioning of Wu Li-ju (吳麗洳), a Taipei City Government treasurer, about how Ma used his special mayoral fund.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUI, TAIPEI TIMES
‘BIAS’
Last year Ma asked the court to remove three prosecutors from his cases, citing “bias,” but State Public Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) rejected the request.
The Presidential Office defended Ma’s decision to go after Hou, arguing that the move was not out of personal interest but to serve as an example to others.
Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) said she respected the president’s right to do so.
Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said Hou might deserve scrutiny, but he alone must not be targeted.
Lu is also under investigation for her use of the special allowance fund during her stint as Taoyuan County commissioner. Lu urged Ma to help all those embroiled in cases involving the discretionary fund, which she described as a “historic glitch.”
Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) criticized Ma for sabotaging the constitutional system, saying Ma should step down and give up his presidential immunity before filing the appeal.
Judicial Reform Foundation executive director Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠) said that he did not see how Ma would benefit from the lawsuit or how, in Ma’s word, his decision would serve the public interest.
Kao said he did not blame Ma’s legal advisers for making such a suggestion, but Ma — a law graduate and seasoned politician — did not seem to have the political wisdom to make the best decision.
It would be a lose-lose situation for Ma, Kao said, because the public would doubt the impartiality of the court if Ma wins, and Ma would put himself in an awkward position if he loses.
Statistics show that the odds of Ma winning the case are one in a thousand, Kao said, adding that he was “99 percent sure the court would turn down Ma’s request.”
Kao said legally Ma had the right to go after Hou as a civilian, but the question was whether it was necessary for the president to desert administrative means and seek justice in court.
As prosecutors are civil servants, Kao said Ma could have the justice minister or state public prosecutor-general mete out punishment had Hou done anything wrong.
Ma could also make efforts to improve the evaluation system of prosecutors, strengthen their exit mechanism or ask the government watchdog, the Control Yuan, to step in.
With its legislative majority, Kao said Ma could also ask the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to amend the laws and make the system better rather than seeking personal justice at the expense of others.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Kao said the system of committal for trial was problematic and flawed, with some criminal litigation experts considering it unconstitutional.
While the prosecutor, in this case Hou, was cleared of the forgery charges by the district court and high court, the accused, in this case Ma, requested another court to decide the propriety of the rulings of the district and high courts.
“It is like having the player be the umpire,” he said. “I don’t know how the president’s appeal would help improve the judiciary.”
Chen Yen-hui (陳延輝), a professor at National Taiwan Normal University’s Graduate Institute of Political Science, said Ma could have the Ministry of Justice or state public prosecutor-general punish Hou had he forged the document in question, adding that Ma would not have any problem seeing Hou dismissed if Ma’s claim proved true.
“But I find Ma’s decision very strange,” Chen said. “I thought the president’s job was to deal with daily state affairs, but it seems he is more concerned about how to make all prosecutors do what he wants.”
By going after Hou, Chen said Ma was sending out a message to other prosecutors that he cannot be touched, or they would end up like Hou.
If Ma was serious about judicial reform, Chen said he could hire someone he trusts to do the job, but what he was doing now seemed to be “killing the chicken to scare the monkeys.”
Huang Chii-chen (黃啟禎), a law professor at Tunghai University, said if Ma meant what he said by serving the public interest, he should revamp the system so more people would benefit from it.
Ma’s move might draw much media attention, but it also intimidated the judiciary, Huang said.
While Ma has said he wanted to see prosecutors record the questioning process more accurately, Huang said he had not seen Ma present any concrete measure to achieve this goal.
“His argument makes sense, but between coming after a prosecutor and amending the law, it is more appropriate for the president to choose the latter,” he said.
“There shouldn’t be any problem for the KMT to revise any law because it enjoys a majority in the legislature,” he said.
Lin Ming-hsin (林明昕), a law professor at National Taiwan University, said that from the legal viewpoint, the president was entitled to sue anyone, and it was his right to justify such an action.
JUDGMENT
“For the president, he must make the best political judgment possible,” he said.
From the non-legal point of view, Lin said he did not see any meaning to Ma’s move except for political considerations.
Lin said that he suspected it was a scheme aimed at using his old litigation to revitalize public interest in the legal case against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
RSS