Chen’s trial showed no one is above the law, but it was also tainted by perceptions of meddling
By Goh Sui Noi 15 September 2009
It is an emotionally charged case that has divided Taiwanese society. So it is of no surprise that the sentencing of former president Chen Shui-bian to life in prison for corruption late last week has elicited mixed reactions from Taiwanese.
A substantial number of them - 32 per cent - think the sentence is overly harsh, and attribute it to political interference, according to a poll conducted by the Apple Daily, a newspaper that is fairly neutral politically. Some 58 per cent think the judgment is a good one.
Interestingly, only 45 per cent of those polled by the United Daily News, a paper friendly to the ruling Kuomintang (KMT), agree Chen’s trial was fair and objective, with 28 per cent disagreeing.
A poll last December by Taiwan’s premier think-tank Academia Sinica disclosed that 50 per cent of Taiwanese thought the island’s judicial system was biased, and only 38 per cent thought it was impartial. Some 59 per cent believed Taiwanese law did not safeguard human rights sufficiently.
It is inevitable that the case has political overtones. Here is a controversial former president who was voted into office in 2000 promising to clean up the black gold politics of the Kuomintang government being charged with corruption himself. And here is the Kuomintang back in power after eight years in the wilderness.
There is also the issue of Chen pushing the independence envelope while he was in office. His policies, often divisive, accentuated Taiwanese identity, and he angered China with what Beijing perceived to be his creeping moves towards independence.
Current President Ma Ying-jeou has reversed gear, emphasising cooperation and interaction with the mainland instead. This has led pro-independence Taiwanese to believe Mr. Ma’s administration has gone after Chen in part to please Beijing.
Certainly, Chen himself has tried to politicise his case, calling it a political witch-hunt, an accusation echoed by his supporters. It does not matter that the investigation - and prosecution - of Chen’s family for corruption was launched while he was still in office. He was not included in the probe then only because he had immunity as president.
But to his supporters, the trial and the sentence reek of political interference. ‘This is political persecution by judicial means,’ said Mr. Bob Yang, who heads the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, a Washington-based advocacy group of Taiwanese Americans who support independence for Taiwan. Many of Chen’s supporters in Taiwan hold the same view, including those who believe he is guilty of some of the charges.
Because of the sensitive nature of the case, it was all the more important that it was handled with care. Not only had there to be due process, people should have seen that there was due process. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
Last December, the judges presiding over the case were changed when the first panel ruled that Chen, who had been detained since November, should be released. The new judges quickly reversed the ruling of the previous judges and sent Chen back into detention. The reason was that the former president might seek to flee the country if he were released. Be that as it may, it was hard not to think that political pressure had led to the change in judges.
Chen’s lengthy detention, nearly a year in all, and the recording of his meetings with his lawyers, have been seen by observers within Taiwan and overseas as an infringement of his rights.
‘The problematic aspect in this trial is the defendant’s extended detention,’ wrote the pro-opposition Liberty Times. It added that the flawed process had had a negative impact on Taiwan’s democratic development.
Chen’s lengthy detention has been criticised in part because it made it difficult for him to conduct his defence. Taiwan’s top court has since ruled that recordings of conversations between detained suspects and their lawyers are unconstitutional, a move seen as progress by Taiwan’s legal circles.
Another problem that arose in the course of the probe and the trial were the incessant leaks to the media, believed to have come mostly from the prosecutors’ office. Mr. Lin Feng-cheng, who heads the non-governmental Judicial Reform Foundation, considered loose lips to be the most serious problem in the case.
‘All the information in this case was leaked to the media - that is our biggest criticism,’ he told the Christian Science Monitor paper. He added that ‘they still haven’t fixed the problem’.
He is right, of course. The China Times reported at the weekend without naming its sources that further charges may be made against Mr. Chen.
It did not help that in the year or so since Mr. Ma took office, several politicians from Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have faced corruption probes - more so than KMT politicians, who in the public’s eye are deemed to be as corrupt, if not more so, than DPP politicians.
While many observers, including those from the West, found the sentence of life imprisonment to be unduly harsh, it is not without precedent. In 2006, Yunlin county prosecutor Hsu Wei-yu was given a similar sentence for graft.
One hopes the Chen case will be better handled in the appeal phase. Some are asking that he be released from detention so that he can prepare for his appeal adequately. The hearing on whether he can be released should occur before Sept 25, when Chen’s current detention term ends. It will no doubt be closely watched.
Some Taiwanese have found it heartening that the rule of law has prevailed in the Chen case. The verdict demonstrates, they say, that no one is above the law in Taiwan, not even a former president. However, many Taiwanese believe there was political interference in the case.
The day that a similar case does not spark the controversy the Chen case did would indicate the maturing of Taiwan’s democracy, including its judicial system.
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Test of Taiwan’s rule of law
Chen’s trial showed no one is above the law, but it was also tainted by perceptions of meddling
By Goh Sui Noi
15 September 2009
It is an emotionally charged case that has divided Taiwanese society. So it is of no surprise that the sentencing of former president Chen Shui-bian to life in prison for corruption late last week has elicited mixed reactions from Taiwanese.
A substantial number of them - 32 per cent - think the sentence is overly harsh, and attribute it to political interference, according to a poll conducted by the Apple Daily, a newspaper that is fairly neutral politically. Some 58 per cent think the judgment is a good one.
Interestingly, only 45 per cent of those polled by the United Daily News, a paper friendly to the ruling Kuomintang (KMT), agree Chen’s trial was fair and objective, with 28 per cent disagreeing.
A poll last December by Taiwan’s premier think-tank Academia Sinica disclosed that 50 per cent of Taiwanese thought the island’s judicial system was biased, and only 38 per cent thought it was impartial. Some 59 per cent believed Taiwanese law did not safeguard human rights sufficiently.
It is inevitable that the case has political overtones. Here is a controversial former president who was voted into office in 2000 promising to clean up the black gold politics of the Kuomintang government being charged with corruption himself. And here is the Kuomintang back in power after eight years in the wilderness.
There is also the issue of Chen pushing the independence envelope while he was in office. His policies, often divisive, accentuated Taiwanese identity, and he angered China with what Beijing perceived to be his creeping moves towards independence.
Current President Ma Ying-jeou has reversed gear, emphasising cooperation and interaction with the mainland instead. This has led pro-independence Taiwanese to believe Mr. Ma’s administration has gone after Chen in part to please Beijing.
Certainly, Chen himself has tried to politicise his case, calling it a political witch-hunt, an accusation echoed by his supporters. It does not matter that the investigation - and prosecution - of Chen’s family for corruption was launched while he was still in office. He was not included in the probe then only because he had immunity as president.
But to his supporters, the trial and the sentence reek of political interference. ‘This is political persecution by judicial means,’ said Mr. Bob Yang, who heads the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, a Washington-based advocacy group of Taiwanese Americans who support independence for Taiwan. Many of Chen’s supporters in Taiwan hold the same view, including those who believe he is guilty of some of the charges.
Because of the sensitive nature of the case, it was all the more important that it was handled with care. Not only had there to be due process, people should have seen that there was due process. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
Last December, the judges presiding over the case were changed when the first panel ruled that Chen, who had been detained since November, should be released. The new judges quickly reversed the ruling of the previous judges and sent Chen back into detention. The reason was that the former president might seek to flee the country if he were released. Be that as it may, it was hard not to think that political pressure had led to the change in judges.
Chen’s lengthy detention, nearly a year in all, and the recording of his meetings with his lawyers, have been seen by observers within Taiwan and overseas as an infringement of his rights.
‘The problematic aspect in this trial is the defendant’s extended detention,’ wrote the pro-opposition Liberty Times. It added that the flawed process had had a negative impact on Taiwan’s democratic development.
Chen’s lengthy detention has been criticised in part because it made it difficult for him to conduct his defence. Taiwan’s top court has since ruled that recordings of conversations between detained suspects and their lawyers are unconstitutional, a move seen as progress by Taiwan’s legal circles.
Another problem that arose in the course of the probe and the trial were the incessant leaks to the media, believed to have come mostly from the prosecutors’ office. Mr. Lin Feng-cheng, who heads the non-governmental Judicial Reform Foundation, considered loose lips to be the most serious problem in the case.
‘All the information in this case was leaked to the media - that is our biggest criticism,’ he told the Christian Science Monitor paper. He added that ‘they still haven’t fixed the problem’.
He is right, of course. The China Times reported at the weekend without naming its sources that further charges may be made against Mr. Chen.
It did not help that in the year or so since Mr. Ma took office, several politicians from Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have faced corruption probes - more so than KMT politicians, who in the public’s eye are deemed to be as corrupt, if not more so, than DPP politicians.
While many observers, including those from the West, found the sentence of life imprisonment to be unduly harsh, it is not without precedent. In 2006, Yunlin county prosecutor Hsu Wei-yu was given a similar sentence for graft.
One hopes the Chen case will be better handled in the appeal phase. Some are asking that he be released from detention so that he can prepare for his appeal adequately. The hearing on whether he can be released should occur before Sept 25, when Chen’s current detention term ends. It will no doubt be closely watched.
Some Taiwanese have found it heartening that the rule of law has prevailed in the Chen case. The verdict demonstrates, they say, that no one is above the law in Taiwan, not even a former president. However, many Taiwanese believe there was political interference in the case.
The day that a similar case does not spark the controversy the Chen case did would indicate the maturing of Taiwan’s democracy, including its judicial system.
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