Double-Faced Gov’t: Fighting All the Way to Get Fraud Suspects While Pushing All the Way to Reject a Murder Suspect

 Double-Faced Gov’t: Fighting All the Way to Get Fraud Suspects While Pushing All the Way to Reject a Murder Suspect

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

October 23, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

Chan Tong-kai, a murder suspect now in Hong Kong, is willing to surrender himself for trial in Taiwan; for several days, the government has rejected the offer, its fickle pretext is indeed astonishing beyond belief. Until the government couldn’t duck press criticisms, the Tsai government yesterday changed its tune, saying that “if Hong Kong does not try him, let’s do it ourselves”, claiming that the government would dispatch police officers to Hong Kong to put him under custody for the trip to Taiwan. Taiwan has always prided itself on its democracy and rule of law, but when the government faces a meager Hong Kong suspect, it suddenly became so timid and deeply guarded, utterly shaming the superiority of our country’s democracy and rule of law. In particular, the Mainland Affairs Council under the Cabinet has been flip-flopping in its attitude, while all the way “directing the whole case”, eliciting resentment of the prosecutors and the legal circles, who believe it harmed the credibility of the criminal justice system.

The flip-flopping as well as twists and turns in the manner the Tsai government has been handling the case gave no respite to the public. President Tsai Ing-wen, Premier Su Tseng-chang, Interior Minister Hsu Kuo-yung, and Justice Minister Tsai Ching-hsiang are all law graduates, when they handled this case, they completely start from meticulous calculations of politics and considerations of electoral prospects, throwing out the window ideals of law. Tsai Ing-wen and Tsai Ching-hsiang both said that Hong Kong and Taiwan must have a certain form of “mutual legal assistance in judicial matters” so that we could accept Chan Tong-kai’s surrender. In fact, in recent years, we have negotiated to repatriate telecom fraud ring suspects from many countries, such as Kenya, Indonesia, Malaysia, Poland, and Latvia; the number of suspects often involved tens or even up to a hundred. Had Taiwan concluded any agreements on mutual legal assistance with these countries? Both sides simply negotiated through diplomatic and criminal justice channels, seeking with all efforts to repatriate suspects back to Taiwan for trial so as not to be sent to Mainland China, facing heftier penalties. This was also for the safeguarding of judicial jurisdiction. The Tsai government claims that Hong Kong must first talk and arrange mutual legal assistance in judicial matters; that is sheer pretext.

A wanted suspect for heinous crimes intended to surrender himself, but the Tsai government, surprisingly, was shocked to the extent of not knowing what to do, letting the public see through its hidden tactics. In fact, in the eyes and hearts of Taiwan and Hong Kong residents, our country's democracy, freedom and independence of the judiciary should be more mature and wholesome than Hong Kong under one country, two systems; however, the Tsai government, nevertheless, considers the Hong Kong government as a rival in a tug-of-war, not only picking the wrong protagonist, but also being deeply mired in the myth of self-degradation. The Tsai government’s “conspiracy theory” rejected Chan Tong-kai, basically denoting forsaking judicial jurisdiction. The only explanation is that the Tsai government fundamentally does not care about justice, righteousness or human rights; whenever encountering cross-Strait issues, the law is eventually sacrificed under the “supremacy of politics.”

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