Here Comes Tsai Ing-wen’s "New Dongchang": Control Yuan Members Lynching Criminal Justice System

  Here Comes Tsai Ing-wen’s "New Dongchang": Control Yuan Members Lynching Criminal Justice System

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

May 16, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

Despite the fact that many feel that there is not much justification for the Control Yuan (CY) to continue its existence, President Tsai, however, has subverted this thinking. Although Tsai Ing-wen only nominated 11 new members to the CY, they have been able to defeat the majority with a minority in numbers, turning the CY into a dynamo for propagating “Green justice.” Recently, Kao Yung-cheng and Tsai Chung-yi, two pro-Green CY members appointed by Tsai, in order to reinstate Green legislator Tuan Yi-kang in his "hockey puck case", zeroed in on adopting an impeachment motion against Chen Long-xiang, the case prosecutor; this is precisely a demo lesson of the "Control Yuan lynching the criminal justice system."

Ironically, since President Tsai came to office, she has repeatedly trumped for criminal justice system reform; in reality, there has been no action, and now she has repeatedly condoned CY members overstepping and oppressing the criminal justice system. This time, CY members utilized "Tuan Yi-kang’s hockey puck case" to impeach the case prosecutor, eliciting a serious backlash from in the Association of Prosecutors, which criticized "vicious political forces" for oppressing the independent space of the criminal justice system. Observing the brute and highhanded attitude of these CY members willfully intervening in the criminal justice system, they have tantamountly created a separate "system of trial of final instance by the Control Yuan," making itself as the god of adjudication in the final judgment in the criminal justice system!

A group of CY members who transgressed the law in violation of the Constitution and exercised their functions while looking at the colors are self-righteously intervening everywhere for investigation; this approach is tantamount to another "Dongchang" of the Tsai government. The reason why Chang Tien-chin, the former chairman of the Transformational Justice Commission dared to self-style "Dongchang" was nothing more than he was assured his "pseudo-power of criminal justice system" was unchallenged, not subject to any supervision, while the shady and fuzzy "transformational justice" was precisely the best pretext to smear and trump up charges against opponents. These kinds of “Dongchang” agencies do not need to have numerous staff; however, as long as some crucial figures with slanted character, unswerving loyalty, and adept at knowing how the wind blows incite and provide guidance, the superiors do not have to personally hand down instructions, and may also successfully accomplish the goals and effects that they wanted.

Looking at the Tsai government, various forms of "à la Dongchang" phenomena endlessly occur in the public sector. For instance, the Control Yuan, the Ministry of Education, the Council of Agriculture, the Mainland Affairs Council, the National Security Bureau, and the Central Election Commission, none was an exception. Their common characteristic is to abandon or deviate from the statutory role of their own institutions, changing to a role motivated by serving politics; thus, it has morphed the functions of the entire government into "serving the political party."

Cases of CY members lynching the criminal justice system have occurred one after another; they must be entered into Tsai Ing-wen’s account. Because she nominated biased CY members, creating a “New Dongchang” in the Control Yuan, she even undermined the constitutional system.

[Editor’s note: Dongchang is a Ming Dynasty secret police organization equivalent to the modern-day Gestapo.]

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