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Justice for Chen
I visited former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) at the Tucheng Detention Center
on the morning of Nov. 11. I only learned about the Supreme Court upholding his
conviction on bribery charges after I came home. I felt deeply sorry and sad.
The next day, many journalists came to ask me — the landlord of Chen’s liaison
office — about my feelings about his conviction. A few days earlier, Chen had
been found innocent in another case involving the second round of banking and
financial reforms. I did not expect that just a few days later, he would be
sentenced to such heavy penalties — a combined 19 years in prison (Editor’s
note: The Taiwan High Court on Monday set the prison term at 17-and-a-half
years.) Someone pointed out later that there are problems with the legal basis
of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has said that this decision serves as a warning to
civil servants. I believe a civil servant is responsible for being clean and Ma
should act as a good model. It would have been more effective if you
communicated and gave warnings in the beginning, instead of waiting until Chen
was found guilty.
Let us not forget that there was also a major scandal when Ma was mayor of
Taipei. Ma’s subordinate became a scapegoat in that case. Chen, a Taiwanese
president and a lawyer, should recognize the importance of honesty for a civil
servant.
My late husband served in the civil services of Japan, the Republic of China and
the US. He had a very clear picture of the civil service system, and therefore
he was very cautious about his conduct. We all know that when there are
privileged classes within the civil service system, it is very easy to pick on
somebody else.
As described in Nien Cheng’s (鄭念) book Life and Death in Shanghai, Cheng was
taken away by the Chinese Communist Party even though he did not commit any
crime. The Communist Party tried every means to frame him and sentenced him to
six years in prison. We are also familiar with the Lafayette military
procurement scandal, but why has the truth not been revealed yet? Obviously, “if
you deliberately want to frame someone, you can always find an excuse.” Based on
these cases, you can see if our justice system is reliable and fair or not.
A notable international law scholar, Shigeru Oda, also a judge of 27 years in
the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands (including 12 years
as vice president), was a high school and college classmate of my late husband.
Oda told me, and wrote in the preface of the Chinese version of Taiwan Witnessed
a Century how Ma had visited him in the mid-1990s on his way to The Hague and
talked about the vision of the “new Taiwanese” and that “Taiwan belongs to the
people of Taiwan.” He was confident and looked forward to seeing this vision
realized by Ma as president. This would also be a dream come true for Taiwanese.
However, Oda would be very surprised and sad if he heard the news about Chen’s
verdict.
I remember Ma once saying: “We want to see Chen die in a very shameful way.” Ma,
has your dream come true yet? You are very pleased, but I am very sad. Humble
senior citizens like me would like to speak out and voice our concerns as such.
YANG LIU HSIU-HWA
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