Today, I appear before the Judicial Yuan’s Public Functionary Disciplinary Sanction Commission’s preparatory proceedings with respect and reverence, hoping to defend my innocence before the judiciary.
The reason I must stand here today originates from the NTU Presidential Selection Committee’s election results on January 5th of last year. Were it not for the fact that this result displeased a few powerful individuals, how could there have been an entire year of overwhelming political smear campaigns against me?
How could the Legislative Yuan have demanded the Ministry of Education reject the election results by threatening to “return the budget”?
How could the Ministry of Education have repeatedly obstructed the election results?
How could there have been two “cross-ministry consultation special committee meetings” specifically targeting me as an individual?
How could there have been the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office’s subpoena?
And how could there have been the subsequent Control Yuan investigation? The impeachment passed by the Control Yuan on January 15th of this year was merely yet another persecution after all other political witch hunts had failed.
Methods of Fabricated Charges
This new political persecution uses “overzealous prosecution” and “fabricated charges” to convict the innocent.
First, in order to find evidence of wrongdoing, these persecutors obtained my income tax records spanning nearly twenty years from the National Tax Administration, scrutinizing every entry and demanding various agencies detail their interactions with me. This included periods when I did not hold any public office—clearly beyond the scope of the Control Yuan’s authority—and publicly disclosing records from these periods constitutes a serious invasion of my privacy.
Even after such an exhaustive search leaving no stone unturned, the only so-called “evidence” the persecutors could find was my income from writing editorial columns. Yet they invoked various special viewpoints and arguments, engaging in “overzealous prosecution,” attempting to argue that writing editorials violated the “civil servant prohibition on concurrent employment” regulation. The lawyers will provide clear explanations of the relevant legal interpretations, which I will not repeat here. Below I merely list some facts for the Disciplinary Commission and the public to judge.
Controversies Regarding “Concurrent Employment” and “Job-Related”
1. Regarding “Concurrent Employment”
When has anyone ever considered an external person invited by a media outlet to write editorials as holding a “position”?
If it fundamentally is not a “position,” how can there be “concurrent employment”?
Senior media figure Wang Chien-chuang stated in a June 16th commentary: “Articles commissioned by media outlets are external contributions. Writers of external articles are not members of the media’s organizational staff. Beyond article fees, external writers do not enjoy the salary and benefits afforded to staff members. In other words, those invited by media to write articles have neither salary nor position within the media. The Control Yuan’s impeachment of Kuan Chung-min for ‘illegal concurrent employment’ is fundamentally ignorant of how media organizations operate—a classic case of fabricating charges without cause.”
2. Regarding “Job-Related”
Second, the impeachment document alleges that the editorials I wrote were “related to my official duties,” therefore “illegal.”
The Control Yuan’s investigation transcript dated December 25, 2018, clearly records that after reviewing these editorials, the National Development Council and Executive Yuan personnel stated:
- “Not directly related to National Development Council responsibilities” (p. 2);
- From the perspective of a Minister without Portfolio’s legal duties, “the column content has no connection to their duties” (p. 3);
- “Column content was previously assessed by Executive Yuan operational units, and upon review was found unrelated to their responsible legislation” (p. 4).
Yet the impeachment document ignores these testimonies and, without any factual basis, asserts that these editorials could not possibly be “entirely unrelated” to my duties. The impeachment document further speculates or calculates in various ways the number of editorials I wrote and the fees per article, using these as the foundation of its arguments. These allegations that disregard facts constitute “fabrication” and “framing.”
A Heartfelt Appeal
After enduring more than a year of political persecution, I must solemnly state that if today society tolerates this kind of overzealous prosecution and fabricated charges as political persecution, then in the future, anyone could suffer the same unjust treatment.
A passage from MLK (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) is worth our deep reflection: “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
Today I appear at the preparatory proceedings with a reverent heart, hoping that the judiciary can clarify and rectify false accusations, that the voice of social justice can condemn injustice, and most importantly, that I will be the last person to suffer this kind of political persecution.
Notes:
- 深文周納 (Overzealous Prosecution): Literally “deep text, thorough weaving.” Refers to manipulatively citing harsh legal provisions without basis in fact to convict the innocent. From Records of the Grand Historian and Book of Han.
- Wang Chien-chuang, “The Blind Spots in Hsu Tzong-li’s Reforms,” https://udn.com/news/story/7340/3874431.