Taiwan’s judiciary has some way to go

By Ho Ai Li from Straits Times

THE promotion of Taiwan judges used to depend on whether they were members of the Kuomintang (KMT). But things have changed since martial law was lifted in 1987. The judiciary has been slowly depoliticised since then and become more independent.

But as the controversial corruption trial of former president Chen Shui-bian shows, Taiwan’s judiciary has some way to go before it is seen to be independent and fair.

Of course, public perceptions on the island are often coloured by politics, as can be seen in the reactions to the life sentence that Chen received. One in two people polled by the Taiwan media hailed the sentence as a triumph for the rule of law. But a third disagreed, saying it smacked of persecution by the ruling KMT of Chen, the ex-chief of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The public perception of the judiciary system has not been helped by the attacks that have been waged against it. Politicians and pundits from both sides have been guilty of undermining confidence in the judiciary.

When Judge Chou Chan-chun ruled that Chen should be freed from detention last December, for instance, the KMT camp criticised the decision and accused the judge of being sympathetic to Chen. When Judge Tsai Shou-hsun reversed Judge Chou’s decision later, he was slammed by DPP politicians for being biased against Chen.

The attacks on the court continued after the former president was sentenced, with some saying the life term handed out to Chen was too punitive. But past cases show that the sentence was not without precedence.

In 1997, the late Wu Tse-yuan, a former Pingtung county chief from the KMT, was given a life sentence for accepting over NT$26 million (current value S$1.1 million) in bribes over the awarding of a contract. He was also found guilty on a separate charge of taking NT$30 million in bribes.

Another KMT official, Wu Chao-feng, a township chief from Nantou county, was also sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 for taking about NT$15 million in bribes. His offence was taken especially seriously, as he had profited illegally from money set aside for survivors of an earthquake.

Given that the sums involved in the case of Chen and his wife totalled some NT$900 million, the punishment they received is not surprising. Judges took into account the seriousness of his offences.

The lack of public confidence in Taiwan’s judiciary, however, is not just a matter of perception. Chen’s widely scrutinised case has highlighted longstanding problems with the judicial system and rule of law in Taiwan.

The leakage of information about investigations to the media, for instance, is a problem. The media often publishes details of crimes even before people have been charged for the offences.

The lengthy detention of suspects before they are charged or sentenced is yet another problem. Taiwan’s High Court on Thursday ruled that Chen – who has been detained since late last year – should remain in prison while appealing against his sentence.

Mr Lin Feng-cheng of the Judicial Reform Foundation cited an example of a murder suspect who was detained for 22 years while his case went back and forth through Taiwan’s three-tiered court system. As a saying in Taiwan goes: ‘Justice that is late in coming is not justice.’

Another problem is the relatively low conviction rate for graft cases, which has cast doubts on the impartiality of prosecutors.

The low conviction rate reflects in part the difficulty of proving graft: It is often one person’s word against another’s. But the low conviction rate could also suggest that some of the charges were filed despite weak evidence – thus creating the impression that some cases were pursued for political reasons.

It is also hard for the public not to doubt the integrity of the prosecutors and judges when some of them have close contact with politicians. For instance, two prosecutors in Chen’s case, Mr Wu Wen-chung and Mr Chu Chao-liang, were found to have violated the code of conduct for prosecutors by meeting the ex-president privately in July last year, when investigations were ongoing.

By contrast, judges and prosecutors in Hong Kong stay away from politicians to avoid compromising their independence, noted commentator Lin Gong Qing on the BBC’s Chinese-language website.

He noted that Taiwan may be more democratic than Hong Kong but lagged behind the former British colony in the rule of law. Last year, Taiwan was ranked fifth for judicial independence out of 12 Asian economies. It lagged behind Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea in the Political Economic Risk Consultancy’s (Perc) poll of about 1,500 expatriates in Asia.

Certainly, Taiwan’s judiciary has made progress since the days of one-party rule. Among other things, promotion and case assignment practices have become more transparent, noted National Chengchi University academic Wang Chin-shou.

But as the closely scrutinised trial of Chen has shown, much more needs to be done to strengthen judicial independence and restore trust in Taiwan’s judicial system. – ST