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Ex-president writes
of ‘death in prison’
‘DESTINY’: Chen Shui-bian wrote that regulations
allowing medical parole only for dying inmates would not be releasing a person
for treatment, but to wait for death
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) talked about his possible death in prison
and criticized regulations on medical parole in his weekly column published
yesterday.
“It would not be a surprise if the headline ‘Chen Shui-bian dies in prison’
appears on every media outlet someday,” Chen, who is serving a
17-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, wrote in his weekly column, titled
“Death of a president,” for the Chinese-language weekly Next Magazine.
Chen said his deteriorating health had been confirmed by several physicians, who
had visited him in prison and said Chen’s life “could be in danger anytime.”
While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has called for Chen’s release for
medical treatment, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) did not address the issue until
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) made the same appeal last week.
Ma rejected Hau’s suggestion in an interview with the Central News Agency on
Monday, saying that a medical parole would “actually mean [Chen] being released
from prison.”
Chen wrote that an executive order from the Ministry of Justice “basically
allows a release for medical treatment only for dying inmates, including those
who are terminally ill cancer patients.”
“A release under that condition would not be for seeking medical treatment, but
for waiting to die,” he wrote.
“[My] dying in prison would be a gift from God and my destiny,” he added.
The DPP has in the past few days accused Ma of “distorting the law.”
“The law clearly stipulates that a prisoner has to return to prison after
receiving appropriate medical care and that the time spent out of the prison
counts against his prison term,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said
yesterday in Yilan County’s Jiaosi Township (礁溪).
“It is strange that Ma and I went to the same school, read the same law
textbooks and studied under the same professors and yet he comes up with these
strange opinions,” said Su, who, like Ma, graduated from National Taiwan
University with a law degree.
Also speaking in Yilan, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said the Ministry of
Justice “should act like a professional instead of catering to what the
president says and politicizing a legal issue.”
Hsieh said he supported the release of Chen because it would “fit the general
atmosphere in society.”
“Any legal expert should know that the interpretation and application of law
should meet society’s expectation — and what society expects is that legal
practitioners should defend social values and consciousness,” former DPP
chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said in a message on her Facebook page yesterday.
“The interpretation and manipulation of law as a tool for personal benefit and
political agenda would be a bad example,” she wrote.
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