Lin Cho-shui, former DPP politician and current political commentator, sets out some of the problems with the Lee Teng-hui indictment:
All the evidence presented in Lee’s indictment is identical to that set out in the charges against former National Security Bureau (NSB) chief accountant Hsu Ping-chiang (徐炳強). Hsu was found not guilty, so there is no good reason to indict Lee on the same grounds.This is a long, ringing defense of Lee and a scathing denunciation of the prosecution and should be read in its entirety. It has a problem that the Taipei Times editors should have spotted and removed:
Based on the principle of double jeopardy, the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) states that a case in which a final judgement has been reached can only be retried if it meets certain conditions, such as the original evidence or testimony was false, new evidence has been discovered or the prosecutors, investigators or judges in the original case acted unlawfully or negligently. If these conditions are not met, the case cannot be brought to trial again.
This regulation exists to prevent malicious prosecutors from heaping endless litigation on a person. The principle of double jeopardy also preserves the order and stability of the legal system by ensuring that the courts do not get bogged down with frivolous cases.
The case against Lee is based on the same grounds as Hsu’s indictment. The evidence is the same and the conduct of the original prosecution and trial has not been found to have been in any way unlawful, so the case does not meet any of the conditions required for a retrial.
It was correct to indict former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for instances of blatant corruption. It is true that the president’s state affairs fund is much larger than a mayor’s special allowance fund and that Chen and his family employed all sorts of means to misappropriate government money.Chen Shui-bian was found innocent of misappropriating government funds -- the prosecutors lost the trial and then two appeals on the charge of embezzling the state affairs fund. It would be nice if Lin's antipathy to Chen was smacked down by the editors before it lands the Taipei Times in legal trouble.
ADDED: Maddog comments insightfully below:
Shorter Lin Cho-shui (林濁水): "Despite their history of 'crying wolf' with charges against DPP officials, Itotally believe all of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) charges against Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁)."_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Couldn't agree more. A great article ruined somewhat by a careless and easily researched mistake on a legal outcome. Otherwise it is an excellent read and an insight into the now transparent use of the judiciary to settle old scores. It also seems like the KMt is determined to utterly discredit and destroy the reputations of the only two Taiwanese presidents of THEIR ROC since they can't expunge them from the historical record or pretend that they weren't legitimately elected ROC presidents. I hope this backfires in their faces in a large way.
ReplyDeleteShorter Lin Cho-shui (林濁水): "Despite their history of 'crying wolf' with charges against DPP officials, I totally believe all of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) charges against Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁)."
ReplyDeleteTim Maddog
For the paragraph in question, something very wrong about TT's translation of Lin's article. Here is Lin's original text in Chinese:
ReplyDelete"陳水扁一些貪錢貪得不像樣的案子都該辦。但國務機要費雖額度遠大於特別費，扁家挪用的作法也惡形惡狀，...."
In English:
"It was correct to investigate former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for instances of blatant corruption. It is true that the allowence of president’s state affairs fund is much larger than that of a mayor’s special allowance fund and that the way Chen and his family use the fund looks ugly..."
TT's version:
"It was correct to indict former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for instances of blatant corruption. It is true that the president’s state affairs fund is much larger than a mayor’s special allowance fund and that Chen and his family employed all sorts of means to misappropriate government money."
Note that the word Lin used: "辦", which is often used together with "案" --- "辦案" means "investigate the case", not "indict." So in my opinion, what Lin said was that Chen's cases should be "investigated." TT's translation seems to carry it a bit further than what the original author indicated.
This happens again in the end of the paragraph. Lin's article didn't say that the way Chen/Family used the fund was wrong. But the translation use the word "misappropriate," which has a meaning of judgment on a wrong action. In that sense the original meaning was twisted.
The translation also missed the word "allowence," which I think is very importent, too.
Simply this paragraph alone, Lin's original meaning is twisted significantly.
Lin's original article can be found here:
"特偵組濫權 興訴綠總統（林濁水）"
http://tw.nextmedia.com/subapple/articleblog/art_id/33510498/IssueID/20110707
What in my mind is: did the TT hand over a revised version of Lin's article to the translator, Julian Clegg? Or Julian Clegg turned the article to a new one after reading the original article?