With Amendment to Help Former President, the DPP Becomes Corruption Accomplice
By Yeh Ching-yuan
China Times, April 21, 2022
On April 21, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leveraged its majority to ram a bill to decriminalize the use of State Affairs Funds through the legislature within five minutes. This not only violated due process but also violated substantive procedures. It is ridiculous that the DPP forcibly made an amendment just to help exonerate corrupt former President Chen Shui-bian, but rendered President Tsai Ing-wen's "rule of integrity" a laughing stock! It also exposes the nature of the DPP as an accomplice to Chen’s corruption.
As we all know, the former president has been involved in a corruption case of state affairs funds. Essentially, Chen and his wife Wu Shu-chen used the non-existent "the Southern Front Project" "Overseas Diplomacy" "Secret Diplomacy" projects to forge official documents to defraud funds from the national treasury. Wu not only collected invoices from her lady friends for reimbursement but also asked Wan Hai Lines Ltd. to exchange the diamond watch gift that was worth up to NT$1.05 million (about US$35,857) for a Tiffany diamond ring that was worth up to NT$1.47 million (about US$50,200) and used the state affairs funds to pay the balance. Given such a flagrant corruption case, the DPP still mobilized to amend the law to acquit Chen couple of corruption charges. Is it really because the party members from top to down have taken Chen's money?
To be sure, the corruption case involved an amount exceeding NT$100 million (about US$3.4 million). The judgment of the Supreme Court in 2012 enumerated details of expenditures including "purchasing Chen (daughter) Sing-yu's female supplies, personal expenses such as children and grandchildren's passport, visa fees, etc., and demanded the High Court review whether these constitute corruption. Regarding arraignment, the former president and his wife have been consistent, cried out loud about their grievances before the media, but claimed poor health to evade trial when received the court summons. Why do the numerous DPP high-ranking officials in the Legislature support Chen's paying personal expenses with taxpayer's money?
In addition, the former president attempted to drag other presidents into the mire, claiming that fabricating the state affairs funds account is "historic shared karma" of all the Presidents. Interestingly, former President Lee Teng-hui, whose relations with Chen were compared to "father and son" by the media, has publicly refuted this statement and added that his expenditures of the state affairs funds were handled following the accounting system, and no president would corrupt like Chen.
The write-off procedure for the state affairs funds has always required attachments of the original invoices, together with the total amount of expenditures submitted monthly to the account office of the Office of the President, and the yearly amount could be up to NT$50 million (about US$1.7 million). It was different from the special allowance funds (only up to NT$3 million, about US$102,000, per year, and half of them can be written off simply with receipts) which Chen intended to confuse the public. And yet the DPP tried to confuse the state affairs funds with the special allowance funds. It is insulting the intelligence of the Taiwanese people!
This author must warn the DPP that the former president and his wife are not innocent defendants. They have already been convicted embezzlers! They were involved in the Longtan land purchase bribery case, Dahua Securities, and Taipei 101 chairman bribery case. Only count the part that has already been decided, Chen was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and fines of NT$250 million (about US$8.5 million); Wu was also sentenced to 20 years in prison, and the penalty was NT$200 million (about US$6.8 million) and confiscated the embezzled amount of NT$601.8 million (about US$20.5 million).
"Public opinion is like flowing water." If the DPP chose to stand together with the corrupt the former president and his wife and moved to amend the law to exonerate them from the crime, this just exposes the essence of accomplice to the corruption of Chen and his wife. The DPP will inevitably face the public backlash in the mayor and magistrate elections at the end of this year, come 2024 change of power again and judicial prosecution. These can be expected soon.
The author is an attorney and former director of the Disciplinary Committee, Kuomintang Chinese Nationalist Party.
From: https://www.chinatimes.com/opinion/20220421004292-262104?chdtv