By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
Prosecutor-General Huang Shyh-ming (黃世銘) should live up to his pledge of impartiality and launch an investigation into the reported monitoring of opposition candidates as soon as possible, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.
The party also lamented Huang’s refusal to meet with its representatives on Friday over the intelligence authorities’ reported monitoring of DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), DPP spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said at a press conference.
The Chinese-language Next Magazine reported on Wednesday that National Security Council -Secretary-General Hu Wei-chen (胡為真) asked the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau to monitor Tsai in May and had submitted the information to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Ma, who is seeking re-election, on Friday said he was not aware of the alleged monitoring and pledged to punish those responsible if it was proven to have taken place.
Chen and DPP lawyer Hsu Kuo-yong (徐國勇) asked Ma and intelligence officials three questions yesterday after Tsai did the same in a televised presidential platform presentation on Friday night.
They asked why, if the allegations were true, Huang has not ordered an investigation and demanded that bureau director Chang Ji-ping (張濟平) explain the purpose of a form published by the magazine.
Given that the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID) had promptly launched an investigation into the so-called “Yu Chang case,” in which Tsai has been accused of improper involvement in the formation of a biotechnology company, he added, the SID should also be able to do the same for the monitoring case.
If Huang keeps ignoring the monitoring case, he would not be able to erase the public’s doubt that the SID only investigates cases related to pan-green politicians, Chen said.