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PREMIER RULES OUT CONSTITUTIONAL FIGHT OVER ARTICLE 52

ROC Central News Agency

2006-11-11 03:19:26

    Taipei, Nov. 11 (CNA) The Executive Yuan will not consider for the time being seeking a Council of Grand Justices (CGJ) ruling on the constitutionality of a prosecutor's questioning of the president in connection with the "state affairs fund" case, according to Premier Su Tseng-chang.

    During Friday's Legislative Yuan plenary session, opposition Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Yin Ling-ying said most countries around the world tend to offer criminal immunity to their sitting presidents to spare them any possibility of being distracted by time and energy consuming legal procedures while in office.

    Article 52 of the Republic of china Constitution reads: "Unless the President is guilty of rebellion or treason, he shall not be liable to criminal prosecution without having been recalled or relieved of his duties as President."

    Against this backdrop, Yin asked Su whether the Executive Yuan will request a CGJ ruling on whether prosecutor Chen Jui-jen violated the Constitution when he questioned the president twice earlier this year to obtain testimony regarding the use of a "state affairs fund" budgeted for his discretionary use.

    Su, a lawyer-turned-politician, said the Executive Yuan has no plan to do so at the moment. "It takes a while to evaluate whether seeking a CGJ ruling on the issue is right, necessary or beneficial."

    Also on Friday, former Premier Frank Hsieh said it would be self-contradictory for President Chen and his supporters to now claim that the president's testimony leading up to an indictment of the first lady Nov. 3 on embezzlement charges was obtained in violation of the Constitution. "Based on presidential immunity granted by the Constitution, Chen could have refused to testify, " Hsieh said.

    Nevertheless, Hsieh adding that after the president set a precedent in 2004 by voluntarily testifying before a prosecutor in an alleged vote-buying case in his capacity as chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, it would be 'self-contradictory' now to proclaim that his privilege of presidential immunity was not respected.

    Shortly before the president appeared at a hearing at the Hualien Prosecutor's Office Jan. 14, 2004 as a witness in a case involving a county magistrate by-election in August 2003, he declared his determination to carry out sweeping judicial reforms, stressing he agreed to testify with "peace of mind" because every citizen, including the president, is equal before the law.

    The 2004 case in which Chen testified concerned allegations that You Ying-lung -- the DPP candidate in the Hualien county by-election for magistrate in 2003 -- promised during his campaign that if elected, he would offer every aboriginal tribal leader in Hualien a monthly "service allowance" of NT$5,000.

    After You lost the race, Hualien prosecutors began investigating whether promising the "service allowance" constituted a form of vote-buying.

    In July this year, the Taiwan High Court's Hualien branch upheld the District Court's ruling that You was not guilty because there was insufficient evidence of vote buying.

    Citing the president's testimony in the case as an "example" he set deliberately to demonstrate he wanted no privileges, Hsieh said the president cannot invoke Article 52 of the Constitution now and claim that his immunity from prosecution has been violated in the case, which involves alleged embezzlement of state affairs funds by the first family.

(By Sofia Wu)

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