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If Ma did not light
the fire, who did?
By Chin Heng-wei 金恆煒
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), flanked by Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) for moral support, held a press conference during
which he said Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng’s (王金平) alleged undue lobbying
was Taiwan’s “most shameful day.” He was so rattled he could hardly form a
sentence. Perhaps it is more appropriate to say Ma issued a fatwa as part of the
autumn hunt of Wang.
His words were outrageous and risible. The script should be kept for posterity,
as a comedy classic. It is reminiscent of the words Mary McCarthy spoke during a
1979 interview in reference to Lillian Hellman, her political adversary: “Every
word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”
Few could surpass Ma with regard to intervention in the judiciary. On May 20,
2008, during the handover from the Democratic Progressive Party to the Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT), when former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had less
than one hour left in office, Ma issued a fatwa against Chen. If this was not
political intervention in the judiciary, then what was it?
When, in the second financial reform case, Judge Chou Chan-chun (周占春) found Chen
not guilty, Ma immediately issued a statement saying that the ruling “ran
counter to the public’s expectations.”
He set up a meeting with senior members of the executive, legislative and
judicial branches, the result of which was a High Court ruling that found Chen
guilty of “presumed actual influence.”
If Ma did not set the precedent for political intervention in the judiciary, who
did? Ma lit a bonfire in the judicial system, but gets all hot under the collar
when his officials have the audacity to singe a bit of it.
To see an example of truly shameful behavior, look no further than Ma.
This “most shameful day in the development of Taiwan’s democracy” was not the
day the president was referring to, nor any specific day; it is the period of
time from May 20, 2008, until today and it will continue. This shameful period
was initiated by Ma.
Ma insists on washing his dirty political laundry in public, to the extent that
the international media have found it too embarrassing to watch, with some
saying that he is a “bumbler.” Taiwan has lost so much face, it does not have
much left to lose.
As president, Ma cannot interfere with the speaker of the legislature because
the legislature needs to be autonomous and self-regulatory. This principle is
absolutely crucial to the notion of separation of powers.
Even if Wang has done wrong, under the presumption of innocence until proven
guilty, how can the president make ludicrous comments like: “If this is not
illegal lobbying then what is?” if he does not abide by the judicial process?
If Ma wanted to have Wang removed, he should have done it in his capacity as KMT
chairman, as an internal disciplinary matter. This could have avoided a
constitutional crisis, but he said: “As president, I cannot turn a blind eye to
this.”
This is party-state thinking and behavior. It not only violates the
constitutional system, it violates the separation of the three powers, and
therefore does grievous bodily harm to democracy.
Complicit in Ma’s transgressions was Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) —
if he is not a political hatchet man, then who is? — who completely disregarded
the Communication Security and Surveillance Act (通訊保障及監察法) and was quite open
about going to the Presidential Office and leaking details about the case.
He used Article 44 in Chapter IV of the Republic of China Constitution to
support his actions, but surely the prosecutor-general is aware that Chapter IV
applies exclusively to the president. It is unconstitutional for the
prosecutor-general to invoke it himself.
Above and beyond all other excuses he may want to give, in terms of the
Constitution alone Huang’s leaking of intelligence to the president was a more
serious transgression than former Bureau of Investigation director-general Yeh
Sheng-mao’s (葉盛茂) concealment of government documents and leaking of
confidential information to Chen, for which Yeh was jailed.
The title of a 1947 article by former National Taiwan University president Fu
Si-nian (傅斯年) calling on then-premier Soong Tse-ven (宋子文) to resign famously
read: “This kind of president simply has to go.”
If former US president Richard Nixon was forced to resign over Watergate, how
can Ma stay in office after the damage he has done to Taiwan’s system of
constitutional government?
Chin Heng-wei is a political commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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