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Conduct of SID raises
questions and worries
By Allen Houng 洪裕宏
Last week, the Special Investigation Division (SID) cleared former Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of any wrongdoing in the
Yu Chang Biologics Co case. Prosecutors went to a lot of effort to try and find
Tsai guilty, but in the end, she was still found innocent. Anyone with a
sensible head on their shoulders should be able to see how the entire Yu Chang
case was a ploy used to smear Tsai during the recent presidential election.
Anyone who wants to become president needs to pass strict tests and any doubt
someone has about the candidate must be placed under a microscope. The reason
for this is simple: A president wields a lot of power and a nation cannot afford
to choose the wrong person for the job. However, at the same time, executive
power and the investigative rights of the judiciary cannot be abused to frame a
person of a crime or to discredit one’s political opponents.
The hardest thing to accept about the Yu Chang case is that then-Council for
Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) minister Christina Liu (劉憶如) was
neglecting her duties and instead using official documents that were tampered
with in her accusations against Tsai. A few days ago, the leading story in the
Chinese-language China Times newspaper was about how Liu told one of the paper’s
reporters at the start of June that it was then-premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) who
verbally instructed her to carry out the investigation on Tsai. If this report
is true, Wu, having been a candidate for vice president at the time, should not
have used his executive power to attack an opponent.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his camp can and should question Tsai if they
thought she may have done wrong, but they should under no circumstances have
abused their authority. Liu has already paid the price for her actions and her
integrity will be doubted for the rest of her life. However, it must be asked if
someone else was behind the scenes directing the investigation on Tsai.
Why did the SID conduct such a huge investigation during an election? Are people
supposed to believe that State Prosecutor-General Huang Shyh-ming (黃世銘) did not
know this would influence the election? Prosecutors and judges with even a bit
of common sense should know that investigations should not be carried out or
verdicts given at sensitive times such as elections, especially presidential
elections, if the playing field is to be kept fair.
What is difficult to understand is why the SID and prosecutors and judges are so
fond of actions that damage fairness. Huang has authority over the SID, so why
did he not do anything to stop it? There is no way that senior prosecutors who
have been in the business their entire lives do not know how these things work.
Huang and the SID might believe they can get away with doing whatever they want
and that nobody can do anything against them. However, when the public wakes up
and demands justice, it will be too late for the individuals involved in such
wrongdoings to save themselves.
Allen Houng is a professor at National Yang-Ming University’s Institute of
Philosophy of Mind and Cognition.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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