Ruling in Taiwan ex-president's corruption trial to be announced Sept. 11

Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian enters a police van at the Toucheng detention center to be escorted to the district court for the first day of his formal trial on corruption charges in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, March 26, 2009. (AP Photo)

Taipei, July 29 (CNA) The Taipei District Court will deliver its verdict in the corruption and money-laundering trial of former President Chen Shui-bian on Sept. 11, it announced Wednesday after holding the trial's final hearing.
Judge Tsai Shou-shun, who has been handling Chen's cases, made the announcement at around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday after presiding over a marathon 14-hour verbal debate that concluded the trial proceedings.
Tsai said the court will also announce whether Chen, who was indicted on charges of engaging in embezzlement, bribery, money laundering and forgery during his term as president from 2000 to 2008, will be released or not.
The former president has been detained since Dec. 30, 2008.
Defending himself in a closing argument that lasted more than 3 1/2 hours, Chen apologized to the country's citizens on behalf of him and his family for behavior that did not meet the highest possible moral standards.
He also called into question, as he has in the past, the behavior of former President Lee Teng-hui, former Vice President Lien Chan, People First Party Chairman James Soong and President Ma Ying-jeou.
Chen and his wife Wu Shu-jen have been charged with siphoning off NT$104 million (US$3.15 million) from a special Presidential Office discretionary fund during his term as president from 2000 to 2008.
They are also charged with accepting bribes totaling NT$300 million in connection with a land deal between the Hsinchu Science Park and Dayu Development Corp. and receiving kickbacks totaling NT$90.93 million between 2002 and 2003 to help a contractor win the tender to build the Nangang Exhibition Hall.
In addition, the couple also allegedly took bribes totaling NT$310 million from former Taipei Financial Center Corp. Chairwoman Diana Chen and former Chinatrust Financial Holdings Co. Vice Chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr.
The couple allegedly secretly stashed the funds overseas through various intermediaries, including members of their own family, all of whom have also been indicted for offenses relating to the case.
(By Deborah Kuo) Source:Central News Agency 2009-07-29 12:22 PM

Social groups to tie yellow ribbons for Chen Shui-bian

More than 30 social movements called on the public yesterday to tie yellow ribbons in support of jailed ex-President Chen Shui-bian.
The activity served to underline the need for fair justice in the ex-president's case, organizers said. The movements are calling for the release of Chen, who has been detained as a suspect in cases of corruption and money laundering for more than six months.
On July 12, the activists will tie the ribbons all the way from the Taipei Detention Center in Tucheng, Taipei County, where Chen is being held, to the 228 Memorial Park close to the Presidential Office in downtown Taipei.
Distribution of the ribbons would start earlier, on Monday, when an estimated 1 million ribbons would become available from offices of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party islandwide. The prosecutors in the cases against Chen were moving from locking up people to force concessions, to persecution of the whole family, said DPP lawmaker Lawrence Kao. He was referring to this week's decision by prosecutors to continue a travel ban on the ex-president's daughter Chen Hsing-yu, in effect preventing her from taking advanced dentistry studies in New York. The ex-president wrote a letter to president to ask for leniency in her case because he feared she might commit suicide. Ma replied he could not intervene in judicial cases.
source:Taiwan News, Staff Writer Page 2 2009-07-03 12:10 AM

TaipeiTimes:Chen still silent as trial nears close

Former president Chen Shui-bian yesterday again refused to answer questions at his trial at Taipei District Court.
Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun scheduled yesterday’s session to have Chen examine case files. All of Tsai’s questions to the former president regarding whether he had any comments about the files went unanswered. As usual, the former president kept silent and did not make any gestures to protest what he has called an unfair judicial system.Chen has relinquished his right to call witnesses or speak in his defense, saying he did not need to do so because he was innocent.Prosecutors and Chen’s court-appointed attorney, Tseng Te-rong, also said little yesterday, telling the court they would save their comments until a later date for closing arguments.Tsai set Tuesday as the date for the closing arguments.Outside the courthouse, more than 100 of the former president’s supporters from groups including the Southern Taiwan Society and the Northern Taiwan Society gathered to demonstrate against his continued detention.Holding up signs that read “Unjust judiciary” and “Release A-bian now,” the protesters called on the Grand Council of Justices to declare the switching of judges in Chen’s case unconstitutional.Huang Yung-tien, who was among the hundreds of protestors who gathered on July 10 for a detention hearing, returned yesterday, protesting with his hands in handcuffs.Several protesters shouted “Tsai Shou-hsun, go to hell” and “A-bian is innocent.”In January, Chen’s office asked the council to rule on the legitimacy of his pre-trial detention and the switching of judges from Chou Chan-chun to Tsai.While Chou presided over Chen’s case, he twice ruled against detaining Chen. Tsai has repeatedly ruled to detain him.In December last year, a panel of judges ordered that Chou be replaced by Tsai, who would preside over all of Chen’s cases, which would be merged.The switch was controversial, with some claiming it was and politically motivated. Some legal experts said the decision to merge the trials had violated judicial procedures. Source: Taipei Times 2009/07/24

Civic groups demonstrate in support of former president Chen Shui-bian outside Taipei District Court yesterday as Chen’s trial continued

Members of the Southern Taiwan Society and other civic groups demonstrate in support of former president Chen Shui-bian outside Taipei District Court yesterday as Chen’s trial continued. The defense team and prosecutors will present their closing arguments on Tuesday.PHOTO: CNA

Show your support and write a letter to former President Chen Shui-bian.

Show your support and write a letter to former President Chen Shui-bian.
Chen shui bian/No 2, Lide Road, Tucheng City, Taipei County, Taiwan
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Professor Jerome A. Cohen calls for Taiwan’s legal scholars to speak out on law reforms

Anyone who cares about law and government has to be impressed by visiting Taiwan. Its democratically elected president and legislature, spurred by the interpretations of its independent Constitutional Court, have just ended the power of the police to imprison people without affording them the full protections of the newly revised judicial process.
They have also incorporated the standards of the two major international human rights covenants into Taiwan’s domestic law. The government - in open court - is vigorously prosecuting the reportedly massive corruption of the previous administration.
The long moribund Control Yuan, whose function is to ferret out official misconduct, has come to life, and Taiwan’s lawyers’ associations and civic groups continue to press for further improvements in criminal justice. The island’s free and hyperactive media, essential to the development of the rule of law, enjoy a field day reporting all this.
Yet, surprisingly, a recent intense week in Taipei, spent mostly with legal scholars, left me a bit depressed. As usual in a healthy society, I heard many stimulating critiques of the current situation. Some friends claimed: that ex-president Chen Shui-bian, now a criminal defendant, is being unfairly confined to a miserable detention cell for many months, while others under investigation and indictment for corruption remain free; that the Kuomintang administration of President Ma Ying-jeou is zealously bringing corruption charges against politicians of the Democratic Progressive Party while ignoring the many instances of similar misconduct by KMT officials; that the judge who was ultimately put in charge of the trial of Chen and his family has repeatedly ruled arbitrarily against them; that the legislature failed to enact necessary criminal justice reforms; and so on.
These allegations are troubling, of course. Yet, when I asked my academic friends why more of them - there are a few distinguished exceptions - did not speak out, publish essays and document their concerns, all too often I heard: “What good would it do? We can’t change anything. They won’t listen. Besides, we don’t want to be controversial. People will accuse us of `being too Green’ or sympathising with corruption.” Some seem to be too busy with important research, consulting work or family responsibilities. A few hinted at hopes for government appointments that might be thwarted by controversy.
Such sentiments are understandable, especially in a busy, successful but bitterly divided political environment in which mutual trust and respect are in short supply. Yet Taiwan’s evolving democracy confronts multiple challenges and needs the benefit of all the expertise and wisdom that is available.
It will be difficult to achieve optimum solutions to many major law reform issues without the informed, objective contributions of the island’s best minds. If many of them hold back, for whatever reason, if they fail to take advantage of their hard-earned freedoms to speak out, they put their society’s precious accomplishments at risk.
If Taiwan’s law professors, legal scholars, social scientists and others with unique qualifications to promote public understanding keep silent, they actually exercise fewer freedoms than their counterparts on the repressive mainland, some of whom risk their physical safety, their careers and their family’s well-being by “speaking truth to power”.
As I listened to Taiwan law professors explain their aversion to the public arena, I thought of mainland friends who are paying dearly for having voiced opposition to dictatorial rule. Kidnappings, beatings, imprisonment, disbarment, loss of jobs, exile and harassment of their spouse and children plague activist academics, as well as lawyers. Yet some persist. Should Taiwan’s legal scholars sit on their hands and seal their mouths? What price private pursuits?
Source: U.S. - Asia Law Institute NYU

2009 517 act.in Kaohsiung

Two months ago, there were ten thousands of people influx on the street in Kaohsiung for saving Taiwan and A-bian rescue.