Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) talked about his possible death in prison and criticized regulations on medical parole in his weekly column published yesterday.
“It would not be a surprise if the headline ‘Chen Shui-bian dies in prison’ appears on every media outlet someday,” Chen, who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, wrote in his weekly column, titled “Death of a president,” for the Chinese-language weekly Next Magazine.
Chen said his deteriorating health had been confirmed by several physicians, who had visited him in prison and said Chen’s life “could be in danger anytime.”
While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has called for Chen’s release for medical treatment, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) did not address the issue until Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) made the same appeal last week.
Ma rejected Hau’s suggestion in an interview with the Central News Agency on Monday, saying that a medical parole would “actually mean [Chen] being released from prison.”
Chen wrote that an executive order from the Ministry of Justice “basically allows a release for medical treatment only for dying inmates, including those who are terminally ill cancer patients.”
“A release under that condition would not be for seeking medical treatment, but for waiting to die,” he wrote.
“[My] dying in prison would be a gift from God and my destiny,” he added.
The DPP has in the past few days accused Ma of “distorting the law.”
“The law clearly stipulates that a prisoner has to return to prison after receiving appropriate medical care and that the time spent out of the prison counts against his prison term,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday in Yilan County’s Jiaosi Township (礁溪).
“It is strange that Ma and I went to the same school, read the same law textbooks and studied under the same professors and yet he comes up with these strange opinions,” said Su, who, like Ma, graduated from National Taiwan University with a law degree.
Also speaking in Yilan, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said the Ministry of Justice “should act like a professional instead of catering to what the president says and politicizing a legal issue.”
Hsieh said he supported the release of Chen because it would “fit the general atmosphere in society.”
“Any legal expert should know that the interpretation and application of law should meet society’s expectation — and what society expects is that legal practitioners should defend social values and consciousness,” former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said in a message on her Facebook page yesterday.
“The interpretation and manipulation of law as a tool for personal benefit and political agenda would be a bad example,” she wrote.
‘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
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
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
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
RSS