FORMER PRESIDENT CHEN'S TRIAL A BAROMETER OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 001153 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/15/2019 TAGS: KCRM KJUS PGOV PREL PHUM CH TW SUBJECT: FORMER PRESIDENT CHEN'S TRIAL A BAROMETER OF TAIWAN'S JUDICIAL SYSTEM? REF: A. TAIPEI 382 ¶B. TAIPEI 571 ¶C. TAIPEI 623 ¶D. TAIPEI 847 ¶E. TAIPEI 903 ¶F. TAIPEI 1072 Classified By: AIT Director Bill Stanton for reasons 1.4(B) and (D). ¶1. (SBU) Summary: The trial of former President Chen Shui-bian (reftels) demonstrated that no one is above the law in Taiwan, even as it also revealed shortcomings in Taiwan's relatively young judicial system, according to the U.S.-Asia Law Institute's Jerome Cohen. Although Taiwan's judicial system has gone in just two decades from martial law to a system that legal scholars agree is broadly reliable and impartial, reform advocates argue that further procedural improvements will offer additional protections. Proponents of judicial reform have taken advantage of public attention on the issue in the wake of Chen's corruption conviction to push President Ma Ying-jeou to support those reforms. U.S. Legal Expert: System Fundamentally Reliable -------------- --- ¶2. (C) Taiwan's judicial system was fundamentally reliable and fair, Jerome Cohen, Co-Director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute and the Harvard University mentor to President Ma (and to Chen Shui-bian's former Vice President Annette Lu), told AIT PolOff in a meeting following the corruption conviction of former President Chen. Although Taiwan's system now contained elements of the U.S. judicial system, it was most similar to the European model. A key conclusion of the Chen trial, Cohen recently wrote, was that no one, not even the President, was above the law. At the same time, the judicial shortcomings illustrated in the Chen trial, Cohen told PolOff, pointed to the inevitable growing pains of a system that had undergone a vast transformation from tool of martial law authorities to independent judiciary. Resolving the issues brought forth in the Chen trial -- consistent and clear enforcement of ethics regulations, a review of pre-indictment detention, and an immediate ruling by the highest court on the constitutional challenge to the transfer of Chen's case between judges -- required action at the highest level of government. None of these concerns, he underscored, altered his assessment of the fundamental soundness of the system. Chen Trial Focuses Attention on Judicial Procedure -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) The trial and conviction of former President Chen Shui-bian received a tremendous amount of media attention and sparked debate on the judicial system both within Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and within Taiwan society at large. The debate has focused more on questions of judicial procedure rather than of guilt or innocence. Even within the DPP many believe there was at least some truth to the corruption charges against Chen. For example, his vice president, Annette Lu, has called on him to apologize for his crimes. ¶4. (C) Legal scholars generally have dismissed claims that the case against Chen was based on a political vendetta by the current Kuomintang (KMT) administration. Indeed, prosecutors took up the case during Chen's presidency. Yet some other issues have gained traction, such as the controversial transfer of the case from a judge who released Chen from detention without bail to another judge who had kept Chen in detention for nine months before the verdict. Other issues raised in the media that mirrored judicial reformists' long-standing complaints included leaks by prosecutors, defense lawyers, and others; pre-charge detention; and the government's perceived weak response to allegations of misconduct by judicial officers. TAIPEI 00001153 002 OF 002 Critics: System Reliable, But Government Must Own Reform -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C) With even the harshest critics of Taiwan's judicial system agreeing on its general reliability and impartiality, reform advocates have been having a tough time finding a powerful politician to champion their cause. Wang Jaw-perng, the Associate Dean at National Taiwan University's College of Law and one of Taiwan's leading Criminal justice experts, said the administration's reluctance to push reform was based on fear of being accused of political interference at a time of intense public scrutiny of the Chen trial. Meanwhile, he argued, the DPP did not have the necessary political power to advance reform; even if it did, the party would be wary of accusations it was acting solely to benefit Chen. As a result, Wang concluded, no one had yet to come forward to "own" the judicial reform issue. Judicial Reform Advocates Push for Reforms -------------- ¶6. (C) Still, judicial reformers took advantage of the publicity surrounding the Chen trial to convince Ma to talk to them. At that meeting, contacts told PolOff, Ma asked for judicial reform suggestions and promised to reply by November. While skeptical, our contacts promised to keep pressing Ma to fulfill his campaign promise to promote judicial reform. Separately, Li Rong-geng, a law professor at Soochow University who is married to a member of the Special Investigations Division that prosecuted Chen, told AIT that in mid-September high-level officials from the Ministry of Justice, the Judicial Yuan, and the Presidential Office met to discuss judicial reforms. These included a proposal to shorten the length of pre-indictment detention from two months with a possible two-month extension to 10 days with one 10-day extension. Comment -------------- ¶7. (C) The trial of former President Chen provided ammunition for legal experts who claim Taiwan's judicial system is largely reliable. Despite the highly politicized nature of commentary surrounding the trial, few in Taiwan have seriously questioned the guilty verdicts. Even many of Chen's supporters acknowledged at least some truth to the corruption charges. The trial also underlined the need for further judicial reforms to address issues such as the use of detention and the oversight of prosecutorial behavior. Reformers have taken advantage of the attention the Chen case has garnered to urge President Ma to take "ownership" of their agenda. While they won a face-to-face meeting with Ma to voice their concerns, they remained skeptical the President would adopt their proposals as his own. STANTON