The procurator-general’s sleeping on the expense account issue

The procurator-general’s sleeping on the expense account issue

The China Post Editorial, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
May 14, 2007


Queen Elizabeth I ruled England from 1558 to 1603. She was a very capable monarch, turning her small prostrate and unimportant nation after civil wars a century before into a flourishing, proud and successful early modern country. One of her secrets to success was to “sleep on it” when she was confronted with a crisis and unable to make a decision. She used to withhold her decision long enough to let the crisis solve itself. Her delaying tactic worked almost all the time.

The Virgin Queen, who was truly loved by her subjects, had a modern disciple in Taiwan. When facing a scandalously tough decision to make, Procurator-General Chen Tsung-ming is sleeping on it. But few love him.

It all started when prosecutors in Tainan acquitted Hsu Tain-tsair, the mayor of that south Taiwan city, of charges that he misused his expense account early last month. The mayor used half of the expense account allowance without justification, but the prosecutors believed that was part of his salary for the use of which he didn’t have to account and dropped the charges. They considered it a private fund. That wouldn’t have blown any ripples but for a diametrically opposite decision made earlier by their colleague in Taipei.

Prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen at the Taiwan High Court anti-corruption center indicted Ma Ying-jeou for embezzlement on February 13. Ma remitted half of his allowance to his personal bank account while he served as mayor of Taipei from 1998 to 2006 and didn’t return the unused part of it to the national coffers. The prosecutor regarded the whole expense account allowance as a public fund, the spending of which has to be wholly accounted for, and charged the former mayor with corruption. Ma is standing trial.

The double standard applied by Hou and his Tainan opposite numbers would be a non-issue, if Ma were not running for president. He quitted as chairman of the Kuomintang when he was indicted and was confirmed earlier this month as the party’s nominee for the presidential election in March next year. If he were convicted, Ma would be disqualified as a candidate.

In the meantime, Ma’s supporters are suing some 120 top government officials for misusing their expense account allowances. Among them are Vice President Annette Lu, Premier Su Tseng-chang, his predecessor Frank Hsieh, and Democratic Progressive Party chairman Yu Shyi-kun. Hsieh, who had served as mayor of Kaohsiung before he was made premier in 2005, is the standard bearer of the ruling party ready to take on Ma Ying-jeou.

The stage was now all set for the nation’s highest prosecutor to play his leading role in the politico-judicial controversy. He came out in the open to demand a unified opinion of the prosecution in the handling of all expense account misuse cases. A man of his word, he ordered an opinion survey of all public prosecutors, which would be followed by a meeting he would call to make a decision as to how the prosecution should treat the 120 odd expense account scandals. He wanted to determine once and for all that controversial half of the allowance is a public or a private fund.

Prosecutors in all 16 districts across the country were asked whether they agreed with Hou Kuan-jen or his Tainan counterparts and if they thought Ma was guilty of corruption. Half of them, in eight districts, sided with Hou, while those in four districts endorsed the opposite opinion. Prosecutors in the remaining four districts declined answer. Those in eight districts refused to answer the second question. Prosecutors in eight other districts, however, believed Ma innocent. Only those in the Kaohsiung district considered him guilty.

All 16 district prosecutors-in-chief trotted to Chen Tsung-ming’s meeting on May 8. Academics were asked to attend, too. The procurator-general drew only one conclusion: All agreed to disagree. So he passed the buck to all prosecutors. Hereafter, he announced, they have to make a decision at their own discretion on a case by case basis. But he also required them to inform him when they are going to pass judgment.

That certainly is a sleeping-on-it tactic much better than Queen Elizabeth’s. He doesn’t have to take a decision but may, if he so wants.

On the other hand, Frank Hsieh may yet to be investigated in connection with spending the expense account allowance like Ma Ying-jeou. A district prosecutor who shares Hou Kuan-jen’s view may be assigned to look into the case. But when the prosecutor reports his tentative decision to indict the DPP nominee, Chen Tsung-ming may tell him to think it over. It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the prosecutor not to do as is told by his big boss. Should he be indicted, Hsieh would lose any chance he might have to beat his Kuomintang rival.

This is an iffy question, of course. But, given his penchant for unscrupulously meeting with people he shouldn’t, one may legitimately doubt that the procurator-general would refrain from influencing his subordinate prosecutor. He had dinner with Huang Fang-yen, first lady Wu Shu-chen’s family doctor and confidant who was charged with passing a bribe to her for arranging the shady takeover of the Sogo department store chain. Charges against the doctor were dropped on the sole grounds that he wasn’t a public functionary. Chen Tsung-ming also met at a dinner party a Taipei business tycoon, whose wife helped the first lady acquire some of the receipts with which she claimed a NT$14.8 million reimbursement from a public fund under President Chen Shui-bian’s control for the conduct of “affairs of state.” The first lady, indicted for corruption on last November 3, is being tried. The president wasn’t indicted, for he is immune against prosecution, but was regarded as an unindicted co-defendant who will be formally charged on leaving office.

President Chen has to step down on May 20 next year. Should Ma Ying-jeou win the 2008 race, it would be all but certain that the president would face trial. It isn’t impossible that the procurator-general may try to return favors to the man who gave him his job.



(Courtesy of the China Post)

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