Su Chen-ching SOGO Bribery Case: Heavyweight DPP Legislator Convicted and Detained for Multi-Million Bribery, Severely Damaging Clean Government Image

On July 31, 2020, a massive collective bribery case involving the parliament (the SOGO case) shocked Taiwan. Heavyweight DPP Legislator Su Chen-ching (nephew of then-Presidential Secretary-General Su Jia-chyuan) was accused of using his office director, Yu Hsueh-yang, as a "bagman" to accept long-term, huge bribes amounting to NT$25.8 million from Lee Heng-lung, the former head of Tai-Liu Company. Su abused his legislative authority to pressure the Ministry of Economic Affairs, aiming to amend the Company Act (commonly known as the SOGO Clause) to assist Lee in reclaiming management rights. Subsequently, on August 4, the Taipei District Court ordered Su's detention and incommunicado status. The corruption scandal triggered an enormous public outcry, forcing Presidential Secretary-General Su Jia-chyuan to resign in an effort to establish a political boundary. After a trial, the court of first instance heavily sentenced Su Chen-ching to 10 years in prison and deprived him of public rights for 5 years. This major corruption scandal not only exposed the long-standing "office director acting as a black-gold bagman" dynamic within the Legislative Yuan, but also laid bare the dark history of green elites privatizing public power and turning the halls of parliament into an auction house for rent-seeking, severely damaging the parliamentary dignity and the clean government image of the Republic of China 🇹🇼.