The Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that the government may seize US$480 million from accounts belonging to the estate of late arms dealer Andrew Wang (汪傳浦) by retroactively applying property seizure rules that were amended in the Criminal Code in 2016.
The decision threw out a constitutional challenge by Wang’s wife, Yeh Hsiu-chen (葉秀貞), Wei Chuan Foods Corp and other parties to the legal application and property confiscation rules stipulated by the Criminal Code’s articles 2, 38 and 40.
The verdict of Constitutional Case No. 18, 2022 establishes the principle that confiscating criminal proceeds is a restorative measure that gives assets back to their rightful owners, instead of a punishment for the guilty, Chief Justice Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
This means the government did not breach the Constitution’s protections against ex post facto laws, which prohibit the retroactive application of punitive measures, but do not prevent the implementation of restorative measures, Hsu said.
The plaintiffs cannot lay claim to the breach of their legitimate expectations as a third party because they had accepted criminal proceeds in bad faith, he said.
The amendments to property confiscation rules stipulate that illicit gains should be confiscated according to the law at the time of judgement, not the crime’s commission, and that the property of a third party could be seized if they had acted in bad faith.
Wang was a central figure in the Lafayette frigate procurement scandal.
He fled Taiwan on Dec. 20, 1993, days after the body of navy captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓) was found in waters off the east coast.
Yin was reportedly a whistle-blower who had planned to report graft and siphoning of funds by people involved in the deal.
Prosecutors in 2006 indicted Wang on charges of bribery, money laundering and other crimes.
He reportedly died in the UK in 2015, leaving a sizeable inheritance to his family in accounts held mainly in Swiss banks.
Yeh, who was also indicted in connection to the scandal, is living abroad as a fugitive and filed the case by proxy.
Wei Chuan Foods joined the lawsuit to avoid the seizure of NT$32.9 million (US$1.07 million) in assets after company chairman Wei Ying-chung (魏應充) was found guilty of selling tainted food oils.
A court found the company liable for the scheme a few months before the amendments passed in 2016.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
The government would cancel kendo practitioner Su Yu-cheng’s (蘇郁程) nationality if he is confirmed to have represented China in the World Kendo Championships in Milan, Italy, last week, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. “We have consulted the Sports Administration and were told that athletes participating in the championships must have the nationality of the country that they represent. They must also present their passports as proof,” council spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a weekly news conference. “If Su indeed represented China in the championships, we suspect that he has obtained Chinese nationality.” The Act Governing Relations Between the People of the