During those “bad” old days when Taiwan was under the thumb of the now officially condemned Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, political dissidents used to say the court of law was “run (like a shop)” by his Kuomintang.Well, their accusation was well grounded.They were persecuted.
In these “good” present days, the man in the street never tires of quipping the court of law is now “run” by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
Our judiciary hasn’t changed a bit.It always kowtows to the powers that be.
A Kuomintang expose specialist lawmaker was finally able to trap first lady Wu Shu-chen in a corruption case.She was indicted on last November 3 for borrowing bills and receipts from friends and relatives to claim a NT$14.8 million reimbursement from a public fund under President Chen Shui-bian’s control for the conduct of “affairs of state.”Chen was not indicted, for he is immune against prosecution, but was regarded as an unindicted co-defendant who will be formally charged on leaving office.He had to vow to step down if his wife were convicted at the first trial.Incidentally, Chiu Yi, the legislator of the opposition party, is doing time for his raid with a mob on the Kaohsiung district court to protest the unfair presidential election on March 20, 2004.He went to jail earlier this year, claiming he was politically persecuted.
The ruling party counterattacked, getting Ma Ying-jeou prosecuted for misusing his expense account while he was mayor of Taipei from 1998 to 2006.He is, like the first lady, standing trial.If convicted and sentenced to more than 10 years in prison, he would be disqualified as Kuomintang candidate for president.
Ma pleads not guilty, for most, if not all, of top public office holders – from Chen Shui-bian on down, including in particular DPP standard bearer Frank Hsieh – handled their expense accounts the way he did and one of the governing party’s leaders, Tainan mayor Hsu Tian-tsair, was absolved of corruption charges by prosecutors in that southern Taiwan city.
The question now is that the Taipei district court is expected to wind up Ma’s trial and hand down its verdict by the end of August, while nobody knows what’s going to happen to the case involving the first lady, who has asked for and been given leave of absence at court hearings for health reason.The court began trying her much earlier than Ma, but the chances are that her first trial may not be brought to an end before her husband serves up his second and last term on May 20 next year.
On the other hand, prosecutors of a newly formed special investigation group under direct control of Procurator-General Chen Tsung-ming are complaining about their heavy workload, predicting none of the top DPP leaders could be charged, if they should, by the end of this year. By the way, the integrity of the procurator-general has been questioned because he met questionable people he shouldn’t have met.One of them was none other than a family doctor of the first lady who helped her arrange a takeover of one of Taiwan’s largest department store chains.These prosecutors, like everybody else in Taiwan, know voters will go to the polls to elect a new Legislative Yuan on January 12 and their new president a little more than two months later.
Frank Hsieh is involved in half a dozen cases, including his misuse of the expense account while he was mayor of Kaohsiung from 1998 to 2005. Prosecutors of the special investigation group are starting to look into his political donation scandal, which has been probed in Kaohsiung for two years.He may be indicted in two or three months, but that won’t affect his presidential campaign.He promised to withdraw from the 2008 race if he were indicted for corruption like Ma Ying-jeou.He hasn’t given his word to quit if he were officially accused of accepting illegal political contributions.
A pertinent – and not an unthinkable – question is if the ruling party is going to flex its muscle to force the court at the lowest level to convict Ma Ying-jeou and when.Should Ma be disqualified too early – before the Central Election Commission closes registration of presidential candidates – the Kuomintang could have a new nominee.After the registration is closed, however, the opposition party cannot field a new candidate.It’s up to the commission to decide on the dates of registration, and that’s one of the reasons why its reorganization is the bone of contention between the ruling and the opposition parties.Currently, the commission, set up under the Executive Yuan in 1982, is under full control of the governing party.
No muscle would be flexed, of course, if Ma were easily beatable.He isn’t a sitting duck, however, despite at least a third of the electorate determined to vote for anybody but a mainlander like the Kuomintang leader, albeit he doesn’t look like a shoo-in he once did.
All this means the Democratic Progressive Party will have to continue influencing our compliant judiciary to serve its political purposes.It isn’t difficult at all to tighten the screw on district court judges to delay their verdict on the first lady.Prosecutors are pliant enough to slow down their investigation.But it takes something short of a divine inspiration to find the time for convicting Ma Ying-jeou that is most profitable to the ruling party.What is called for is an extremely fine-tuned political savviness on the part of Frank Hsieh and company to determine to what extent his Kuomintang rival should be hurt to assure the ruling party of victory in the race for the nation’s highest public office.
As Ma’s political prognosis remains unclear, there can be few adventurous judges and prosecutors betting on his win in next March to resist the ruling party’s arms-twisting.If their past track record is a guide, our judicial authorities will do what is demanded of them.People of Taiwan can’t look forward to fair days in politics in the foreseeable future.
（本文刊載於96.06.11 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）