By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
The Legislative Yuan’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday reached a resolution demanding Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) step down after his absence from an investigative meeting.
Huang, who has been listed as a defendant in a secret-leaking case, refused to attend a meeting hosted by a document request task force under the legislative committee, which was in charge of probing recent controversies involving Huang and the Special Investigation Division’s (SID) wiretapping of the legislature.
The Prosecutor-General also refused to provide his personal and the SID’s telephone records to the task force, saying that he would submit a written report at a later date.
Minister of Justice Lo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪), who was asked to attend the meeting, made several telephone calls to Huang during the session, but failed to him to attend the meeting.
The chief prosecutor was quoted as saying that Huang insisted that he was not required by law to be questioned at the legislature for issues unrelated to budgets and legislation and that the task force’s demand could be unconstitutional.
The documents that the task force demanded have been submitted to the Control Yuan, which is also conducting an investigation, Lo quoted Huang as saying.
The committee passed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus convener Ker Chien-ming’s (柯建銘) proposal and asked Huang to immediately resign from his post.
With the legislature having authorized the document request and investigation, Huang should provide testimony in front of the task force, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said.
Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟), also a KMT lawmaker, said Huang had set a bad example by skipping the meeting as he was obligated to offer an explanation on the SID’s wiretapping to the entire legislature.