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Apr 8, 2008

Weaking the prosecutor, strengthening the defendant, or just doing the right thing?

In the wake of the controversy over the investigation into Ma Ying-jeou's special affairs fund case, KMT legislator John Chih-Yang Wu (吳志揚) is proposing amendments that would set strict rules requiring the prosecutors to tape interviews with defendants and important witnesses, make those tapes and transcripts available to the defendant for corrections, further open general evidence to the defendants' scrutiny, and some other things ... too busy to go through it all carefully, but if someone else wants to make a summary, I'll be happy to post it here.

3 comments:

Tim Maddog said...

I thought that all that had already happened in Ma's case:
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... a deposition ... the recording and the transcript ... the optical disc which contained the entire recording of Hou's questioning of Wu ...

"It makes no sense at all to accuse Hou of fabricating the deposition," DPP caucus whip Wang Tuoh (王拓) said. "Anyone who has a basic knowledge of the law would know that a deposition is only valid after the person questioned has read the whole piece and signed it."

"If the person questioned disagreed with the deposition, he could ask the prosecutor to make changes. Only when the person questioned found the deposition to be fine would he sign it. How could a deposition be fabricated?" he said.

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Tim Maddog

阿牛 said...

I am not sure of the previous law spelled all of this out specifically, or if the prosecutor did all of these things by convention.

Also, the new law also says the prosecutor has to allow the defendant to access and submit alterations to these transcripts/tapes at any time, not just at some set point in the investigation.

Tim Maddog said...

You are correct, but the part about it being "only valid after..." sure sounds as if there's something legal behind it. I wish I knew more.

Tim Maddog