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Prosecutors cannot
deny their moral obligations
By Wu Ching-chin §d´º´Ü
On July 2, following four years of legal wrangling, two cases in which former
vice president Annette Lu (§f¨q½¬) and others were accused of embezzling special
allowance funds ended with not-guilty verdicts, and prosecutors decided not to
appeal. On Wednesday, Lu petitioned the Control Yuan to investigate whether the
prosecutors who brought the case against her had abused their authority.
The conviction rate for corruption cases in Taiwan has for a long time hovered
around 60 percent. Even setting aside the question of whether prosecutors treat
cases differently according to political affiliations, the low conviction rate
is hard to accept.
Taiwan¡¦s existing laws and regulations for punishing corruption are not very
clear, and this makes it hard to prevent the judiciary from handling cases
differently depending on the people and circumstances involved. Before leading
officials¡¦ special allowance funds were decriminalized, there was no law
whatsoever to stipulate how these funds should be used, so they were always
reimbursed based on previous practice.
Officials who handled their allowances in this way ran the risk of facing
serious corruption charges, while some officials who really did pocket public
funds got away with it. The Prosecutor-General ought to ensure that prosecutors
interpret all such cases and apply the relevant laws in the same way across the
board.
People who are prosecuted in relation to the reimbursement of special allowance
funds get saddled with the label of corruption and tied down with litigation
that drags on and on. This is especially true when they are found not guilty at
the first trial but prosecutors appeal the verdict for no good reason except to
save face.
It is a good thing that we now have the Criminal Speedy Trial Act (¦D¨Æ§´³t¼f§Pªk),
Article 9 of which clearly states that, with the exception of three
circumstances, if people accused of crimes are found not guilty in the courts of
first and second instance, the prosecution may not appeal the case to a third
trial. Otherwise, prosecutors would be sure to keep on appealing.
Even when the accused are found not guilty, if they want to bring the
prosecutors to account, they face obstacles in pursuing their objectives.
Although Article 125 of the Criminal Code makes it a crime for public
prosecutors to abuse their authority in arresting or detaining a person, the
conditions for bringing such charges against a prosecutor are extremely
stringent.
What is more, the power to decide whether such prosecutions can go ahead is also
in the hands of prosecutors. Even when an accused person sues prosecutors or
lodges an accusation against them, the case inevitably ends up being closed on
the grounds that investigations have revealed no criminal acts or that there is
not enough evidence. This makes Taiwan¡¦s law against the abuse of authority by
prosecutors no more than a scrap of paper.
The fact that about 40 percent of those accused in corruption cases end up being
found not guilty suggests that either prosecutors are abusing their authority or
they are not doing a good job of presenting evidence. Prosecutors can hardly
deny their responsibility. Furthermore, the low conviction rate of around 60
percent is sure to encourage a try-and-see attitude that does not help.
If prosecutors keep defending their actions by claiming that they indicted the
officials concerned in accordance with the law, it will not just give people the
feeling that they are trying to dodge the blame, but also throw prosecutors¡¦
impartiality even further into doubt than it already is.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate professor in the Department of Law at Aletheia
University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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