Police Commanders' Responsibility Lighter Than a Feather: Commander Yang Hung-Cheng Again Acquitted on Appeal in the March 24 Private Prosecution Case

Photo: Alysa Chiu

At 10:00 a.m. today (the 29th), the Criminal Division of the Taiwan High Court dismissed the appeal in the private prosecution brought by three victims against commander Yang Hung-Cheng over the March 24 Executive Yuan eviction, thereby affirming the acquittal. The volunteer legal team once again expresses its disappointment and regret at the ruling.

What distinguishes this case from the other private prosecutions is that the victims were injured by unlawful police violence inside the first-floor lobby of the Executive Yuan. The defendant, commander Yang Hung-Cheng (then chief of the Nangang Precinct), was in that same indoor space directing the police eviction only a few steps from the victims. Yet while offering no resistance, the victims were struck in the head with police batons, causing intracranial bleeding and immediate loss of consciousness. Police evidence-gathering footage also shows officers openly kicking and stomping on people's bodies and punching them in the face, as people repeatedly cried out, "The police are beating people!" and "Stop hitting us!" The footage shows unlawful violence running rampant in that confined indoor space. As the on-site commander, Yang Hung-Cheng not only failed, after issuing the order, to supervise the officers and ensure that they performed their duties lawfully and protected those present; he also flatly denied that he had personally directed the eviction, claiming that he had spent the entire night standing at the doorway "guarding the door" and knew nothing about what happened.

We cannot help but ask: Is this really all the state expects of senior police officers-to neither hear nor see, and to turn a blind eye to unlawful violence? Can a police commander's responsibility for failing to supervise be cast aside so easily? If commanding officers can evade responsibility this easily, who will protect the public when police exercise state power?

Six and a half years have passed since the March 24 Executive Yuan eviction. The victims and volunteer lawyers have continued to pursue accountability from these police commanders because they want the state to confront the unlawful violence that night and hold those responsible to account under the law, so that the same tragedy will not recur at future assemblies and demonstrations and the Constitution's protection of freedom of assembly can be realized. Regrettably, to this day not one officer who used unlawful violence, nor one police commander who condoned or ignored that violence, has been held to account.

We do not believe litigation marks the end of this historical incident. The legal team will continue working with the victims to consider the next steps in the case, and will not give up on uncovering the truth of that night or holding those responsible to account.

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Lee Ming-Ju, Staff Attorney, Judicial Reform Foundation