Prosecutor-General Yen Ta-ho, Please Leave an Image of Paradigm for Guardian for of Justice

  Prosecutor-General Yen Ta-ho, Please Leave an Image of Paradigm for Guardian for of Justice

China Times (Taipei, Taiwan)

December 5, 2017

Translation of an Excerpt

Ching Fu’s minesweepers case has spawned several scandals, including loan fraud, leaving layers and layers of suspicions. However, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office has been investigating the case at a snail’s pace; there seems to be an invisible political shackle restricting the hands and feet of the investigation by the prosecutors and investigators, thus protecting certain incumbent officials from being investigated, while putting certain retired officials under a microscope for examination. Confronting with this major scandal involving many and causing the loss of tens of billions of NT dollars to state-owned banks, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office, as a prosecutorial agency for the first instance, has manifested its incompetence. It is no wonder that the media and the Internet have recently been carrying calls for the reestablishment of the special investigation division under the Prosecutor-General’s Office.

The Special Investigation Division has been abolished; however, from the actual practice of “prosecutors act as one body,” the Prosecutor-General has the absolute authority to direct the investigative activities of various agencies. Facing a probable major scandal, Prosecutor-General Yen Ta-ho should not stop at being briefed on the case over the phone by the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office, giving sundry directives; he should instead, fully exerting the moral courage of a prosecutor to dig out serious crimes for prosecution, order the reestablishment of a special investigation unit to handle the investigation of the Ching Fu case.

Considering the level of the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office, and the experience, wisdom and courage of its prosecutors in handling cases, the outsider world has many questions and criticisms as to whether they can shoulder the burden of the Ching Fu case, as it is such a complex case involving numerous agencies, and the high level of the officials that may possibly be involved. Prosecutor-General Yen Ta-ho thus cannot shut himself out, allowing society’s questions and criticisms to continue to expand, thereby resulting in out of control sentiments that are anti the government and anti the system of prosecution.

As the prosecution is facing the Ministry of National Defense, the Navy, and even the Office of the President, the determination of evidence of such importance must be handled by the Prosecutor-General and a special investigation unit appointed by him in order to be possible and worthy of credit.

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