A follow-up regarding the mocking skit put up by Taipei District Prosecutors Office (TDPO 台北地檢署).
The unbelievable misconduct - mocking a defendant of their ongoing investigation in a skit - arranged by the Chief Prosecutor of TDPO (see previous post for description and video; Taipei Times' here), has angered many and quickly makes its own way to the attention of international media.
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| Wang Ching-feng (王清峰), Minister of Justice. Source: Ministry of Justice, Taiwan |
So, Wang, who is chosen by Ma to be the judicial administrator of Ma's government, thinks that it's nothing wrong to humiliate a defendant of an ongoing investigation in public, by those prosecutors from the same office investigating him ?
The skit itself is shocking by two key issues: one, it's the prosecutors mocking the defendant currently under their investigations, and two, entire fleet of top law professionals in Taiwan sit there watching and laughing. Not a single one came out to condemn it.
It's unbelievable all by itself. But Wang's response sent an even more chilling wave than the event itself.
In just several months after Ma's inauguration on May, 20th, 2008, the quick deterioration of human right in Taiwan has invited grave concerns from scholars overseas and international NGO human right watch groups. One of the concerns is the questionable procedures on prosecutions focusing solely on DPP members.
Being extremely protective on his image, Ma Ying-jeou has launched a lot of manpower trying to explain away those international accusations by denying.
Ma's government said that they didn't do it; the entire world is all wrong about them.
Denial of facts certainly didn't clear Ma and his administration from the crime of suppressing human right. But, at least, they knew that it's wrong, and they knew that if they admit it, they would be on the wrong side.
The response from Wang to the critics about the skit throw a totally different ball to the game.
This time, she didn't deny the fact and their intention to make fun out of a current defendant, an act that is clearly violating the basic principle of law practicing. But she insists that it's justifiable to do so.
From "knowing right or wrong but denying" to "don't even know what's right or wrong," on something that doesn't need a law degree to know, and demonstrated by Ma Ying-jeou's justice administrator who should have known better than anyone else --- there's gotta be something far more serious than it looks in this administration.
Do Wang and Taipei prosecutors seriously think that it's ok for prosecutors to humiliate in public ANY defendant of their ongoing investigations ?
If yes, then they all should be banned from practicing the law.
If the answer is no --- that they don't think it's acceptable as a general rule, except when it is applied to Chen. What possibly indication could that be? That they believe from deep down of their minds that Chen Shui-bian is a sub-humanbeing, therefore the law they learned in school and practiced professionally the whole life doesn't need to apply to Chen ?
How is Ma Ying-jeou gonna "explain away" this vivid display of discrimination under his administration?
And how is Ma Ying-jeou able to convince people that those cases against other DPP members are not tainted by this mindset of discrimination?
Note: the extent of mis-appointments by Ma Ying-jeou on several incompetent cabinet heads show poor judgment of Ma Ying-jeou. Wang Ching-feng is just one of those cases.
