Statement | Nine Questions on the Blatant Leakage of Investigation Details: Competent Authorities Must Promptly Issue an Investigation Report to the Public! JRF's Statement on the Violation of the Principle of Non-Publicity of Investigation in the Ch'en P'u-tsung Case

Yesterday (December 26), Taiwan People's Party Chairman T'o-che K'o and 11 others were indicted under the Anti-Corruption Act for accepting bribes in breach of official duties and for profiteering through the supervision of matters within one's authority. Ever since T'o-che K'o became implicated in the Core Pacific City case last August, news media have extensively disclosed investigative information regarding the corruption allegations handled by prosecutors and anti-corruption authorities, making it clear that investigative and police agencies have flagrantly violated the principle of the non-publicity of investigations. Although the Supreme Prosecutors Office referred relevant reporting materials from the Legislative Yuan and the media to the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office's "Task Force on Reviewing Non-Publicity of Investigations" on October 25 to ascertain the truth in accordance with the law, no investigation report has been issued to date, leaving civil society unable to scrutinize the matter. In response, our Foundation raises nine major questions and urges the Taipei District Prosecutors Office, the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office, and the Ministry of Justice to respond promptly in order to salvage judicial credibility:

1. Regarding the parts of media reports that match the facts of the indictment, please have the Taipei District Prosecutors Office (TDPO) explain the reasons one by one. Why were the media able to obtain information during the investigative stage that is accessible only to internal case-handling personnel (e.g., witness statements, contents of evidence)?
2. Why did the aforementioned leaked investigative secrets exclusively end up in the hands of Mirror Media?
3. Over the four-month period from August to the present, why have the TDPO and related units continuously and blatantly leaked investigative contents? What review measures have been taken? Why were the media still able to accurately grasp the indictment situation at the very last moment before the indictment?
4. According to Mirror Media's statement on June 8, 2023: "Judicial reporters of all media outlets may enter and leave the TDPO freely for reporting by holding access cards in accordance with regulations." May we ask whether reporters were still able to enter and leave the TDPO using access cards to conduct interviews during the investigation of the T'o-che K'o case? What was the scope of areas accessible to them?
5. Following the above, does the TDPO have complete records and inventories of reporters entering and leaving relevant areas of the TDPO using access cards? Did relevant reporters enter or leave around the time the aforementioned reports were exposed? Are there records of communication between the relevant reporters and the investigators of this case?
6. Does the TDPO admit that a leak indeed occurred in this case? If so, does the TDPO bear responsibility? What are the legal and administrative responsibilities of the personnel involved? How should the Chief Prosecutor of the TDPO be held accountable? If not, who was the person leaking the secrets, and which agency should be held responsible?
7. What is the legal basis for reporters to freely enter the TDPO using access cards? Will this be reviewed? Aside from the TDPO, do other prosecutors offices experience similar situations?
8. According to the media-tour activities organized by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) on June 14, 2023, and August 29, 2024, almost all itineraries consisted of unrelated sightseeing tours. In response to this, the MOJ failed to provide a reasonable response or review to Legislator Huang Kuo-chang's interpellation. Does the MOJ have any further explanation regarding this? Will it proactively disclose the implementation status and outcome reports of the same budget item over the past 10 years? Does the National Audit Office have any comments regarding the execution of this budget?
9. Has the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office conducted any investigation into the violations of the non-publicity of investigations during the handling of the T'o-che K'o case? If so, what is the current progress? Can the investigation results of this case be publicly explained to the general public within one month?

1. Defendants Shall Be Presumed Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Regarding the recent indictment or investigation of politicians from different political parties over corruption, our Foundation believes that politicians, regardless of their political affiliation, must be cautious in their words and deeds, and must never engage in graft or corruption. Regardless of which political party a suspect belongs to, all sectors of society should forge a consensus of "zero tolerance for corruption," uphold an objective attitude of neither favoring nor punishing anyone unjustly, and address the matter seriously together; relevant opinions and criticisms must be based on facts, and standards against corruption should not shift based on political stances.

Society naturally has every right to severely condemn politicians' acts of abusing power and engaging in corruption. However, pursuant to the "principle of presumption of innocence," defendants remain presumed innocent prior to a final conviction, even if indicted. Meanwhile, the process of investigation conducted by prosecutors and police must still strictly adhere to the principle of the non-publicity of investigations.

2. "Blatant Investigation" in the T'o-che K'o Case Renders the Principle of Non-Publicity of Investigations a Dead Letter

Our Foundation has long monitored the realization and implementation of the non-publicity of investigations. In the past, we have issued statements and official documents urging relevant agencies to review improper leakages of case details in incidents such as the Kaohsiung City Police Department's social media "Love and Blood" incident, the Nantou shooting case, and the Tainan police-killing incident. However, the phenomenon of investigative, police, and investigative-agency personnel violating the principle of the non-publicity of investigations has not improved. Even though the 2017 National Congress on Judicial Reform passed resolutions calling for review, many cases during the investigative stage continue to experience violations of the non-publicity of investigations to this day.

For instance, on January 24 of this year, the Criminal Investigation Corps of the New Taipei City Police Department posted search footage on its Facebook page "New Taipei Criminal Investigation Corps"¹; in March, the Taipei City Government Police Department handled a child abuse and death case involving a nanny, handcuffed and escorted a social worker from the Child Welfare League Foundation, allowed the media to improperly photograph the defendant social worker, and extensively reported the criminal facts derived from the investigation²; in early July, the Cheng Wen-tsan case also saw media directly disclosing wiretap transcripts.

From August to the present, news media coverage concerning the T'o-che K'o case has similarly featured daily, real-time reporting of investigative information like squeezing toothpaste, whereas the TDPO or related investigative units have never made any official announcements. Although the TDPO issued press releases on September 1, 9, and 16 stating that the office and related investigative personnel had never leaked any investigative information, it dismissed media reports as "articles written through comprehensive analysis and judgment based on sources recounting what they saw and heard, years of interviewing experience, publicly received interviews of parties involved in the case, and press releases issued by the court."

Reviewing past news coverage and cross-referencing it with the facts in the indictment, except for investigative methods which are not detailed in the indictment, the vast majority of critical investigative details, witness statements, and evidence contents were substantiated by numerous exclusive reports. This repeatedly demonstrates the absurd phenomenon of "blatant investigations." On the other hand, the sources or information behind the media reports at the time were highly likely leaked by internal investigators within the prosecution and investigative agencies, far exceeding what could be obtained merely through reporting experience or publicly given interviews, let alone speculative claims that knowledgeable insiders such as internal work-study students or cleaning staff of the police and prosecution agencies happened to leak information to the media. To put it simply, the investigative methods, sensitive investigative information, contents of evidence, witness statements, and even other crucial investigative documents featured in media reports not only substantiate that internal prosecution and police personnel violated the principle of the non-publicity of investigations, but the individuals involved may also incur additional criminal liabilities, thereby undermining civil society's trust in the judiciary. The low public credibility of the judiciary is likely largely driven by these blatant investigations.

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^{1 JRF Statement dated January 26, 2024 Statement
2 JRF Statements dated March 13 and March 18, 2024}

Date of Report	Original Report Content	Type of Unlawful Disclosure
Aug 13	Prosecutors and anti-corruption authorities discovered that suspicious funds flowing back from Moko to K'o's camp reached several million NTD, far exceeding the 1.7 million NTD claimed by Huang. The discrepancy in amounts will become a key focus of investigation by prosecutors and anti-corruption authorities, and the storm may escalate.	Investigative methods of fund tracing
Aug 28	This magazine has learned that after receiving over 100 million NTD in campaign subsidies following the presidential election, K'o already had more than 73 million NTD in cash flow into his personal accounts. In addition to these subsidies, after tracing the cash flows, the special task force further discovered that through the Moko company established by his confidant, K'o had wired a special fund of over 4 million NTD to his personal account under the guise of portraiture usage rights. Whether personal benefits were sought through the sale of campaign merchandise remains to be further investigated.	Investigative content (see pages 120 and 121 of the indictment)
	The special task force found that for the remaining 2/3, the Taiwan People's Party wired 3 transactions to 3 different personal accounts of K'o, specifically two transactions of 25 million NTD each and one transaction of over 23 million NTD. K'o later also spent 43 million NTD in cash to purchase a commercial office on Jinan Road, and the TDPO has further investigated whether the cash flow originated from campaign subsidies.	Investigative methods of fund tracing
Aug 31	Approximately 7 million NTD of K'o's assets involve unexplained sources of wealth. The special task force found that Ch'en P'ei-ch'i had repeatedly taken large amounts of cash to ATM machines for deposits, amounting to over a million NTD.	Investigative content
	It is understood that when questioned in her capacity as a witness yesterday (the 30th), Ch'en P'ei-ch'i emphasized that all this money was given by her husband K'o, whereas when questioned, K'o could not account for where the money came from and could only reply that he did not know.	Witness statements
Sep 10	Upon tracing Shen Ch'ing-ching's related fund flows, prosecutors and anti-corruption authorities also found that after Core Pacific City obtained its construction permit, Shen wired over 45 million NTD through 8 of his companies to 5 public welfare organizations controlled by Taipei City Councilor Ying Hsiao-wei and her boyfriend. Ying Hsiao-wei instructed her assistant to withdraw the money, deliberately creating a breakpoint, and used the funds to pay off credit card debt and mortgages. However, investigations revealed that 15 million NTD of this amount had an unknown destination. Coupled with the fact that the Core Pacific City floor area ratio increased from 392% to 840% across two stages, during which the Core Pacific Group budgeted a total of 430 million NTD in public relations expenses, it is not ruled out that the 15 million NTD received by K'o originated from this fund. Prosecutors and anti-corruption authorities are going all out to trace the fund flows to verify this account.	Investigative methods of fund tracing (see pages 94 and 95 of the indictment)
Sep 10	According to LINE chat records between K'o and Moko company head Li Wen-chuan, K'o had asked Li about the progress of handling 1 million NTD from a certain well-known media tycoon, 500,000 NTD from a certain well-known food factory head going into the New Homeland account, which items were disbursed from Moko company, and which items were disbursed from remaining campaign funds, stating, "I will discuss these with you later," and other remarks.	Contents of evidence (see pages 122 and 123 of the indictment)
Sep 12	To clarify K'o's fund flows, the TDPO used certificate analysis combined with cross-comparison against the Financial Supervisory Commission system, successfully breaking through bottlenecks recently. It decided to launch the mode used during the investigation of the Chen Shui-bian case back then, and on the 11th, accompanied by anti-corruption officials and investigators, quietly went to several state-owned bank branches including First Bank to inspect bank safe-deposit box and vault rental records. The targets of investigation included not only K'o and Ch'en P'ei-ch'i, but also the K'o couple's three children—K'o Fu-yao, K'o Fu-hsuan, and K'o Fu-jung—as well as related relatives and co-defendants. It was pointed out that investigative personnel presented search warrants, unsealed and seized safe-deposit boxes and other coercive measures, and with the company of bank personnel, used spare keys to unlock them, retrieved and sealed the deposited items, and brought them back to the office as evidence. However, regarding the identities of the renters of the seized safe-deposit boxes and whether the deposited items were cash, jewelry, valuables, or account books and other important items, both investigative personnel and the bank kept a low profile and declined to comment.	Investigative methods of fund tracing
Oct 01	Prosecutors and anti-corruption authorities made major breakthroughs in investigating the Core Pacific City case, breaking the psychological defenses of defendants such as Chu Ya-hu, a confidant of Shen Ch'ing-ching, last week. They confirmed that in 2020, Shen Ch'ing-ching used 7 employees as fronts to bribe K'o with 2.1 million NTD in political contributions. Realizing they could no longer deny it, Chu Ya-hu and the 5 fronts all confessed and admitted to their crimes. Chu Ya-hu and K'o's chief accountant Li Wen-tsung were both detained and barred from visitors and communication.	Witness statements (see page 44 of the indictment)
	Upon decrypting K'o's USB flash drive, prosecutors and anti-corruption authorities discovered that the entry "2022/11/1 Little Shen 1500 Shen Ch'ing-ching" coincided with the time Core Pacific City obtained its construction permit for a floor area ratio of 840% on August 18, 2022. At that time, during the municipal elections, Kao Hung-an, running as the Taiwan People's Party candidate for Hsinchu Mayor, and Lai Hsiang-ling, candidate for Taoyuan Mayor, both appeared on the disbursement list of K'o's USB flash drive. Whether this is related to bribery funds remains to be investigated by prosecutors and anti-corruption authorities.	Contents of evidence (see pages 82 and 83 of the indictment)
Nov 05	In May of this year, K'o even personally issued an order for Hsu Chih-yu to leave the country, writing "Orange Core Pacific leave the country" on a sticky note and immediately tearing it off. However, because the handwriting left impressions on the second and third sticky notes underneath, forensic experts restored them, cracking K'o's secret order. This further proved that "Orange" is a key defendant essential to clarifying the entire case...	Contents of evidence, methods of evidence authentication (see pages 159 and 160 of the indictment)
Nov 27	Investigative personnel then began tracing how he handled the fund flows, and upon restoring K'o's mobile phone, unexpectedly discovered that the internal accounts of Moko company—regarded as a party-owned enterprise of the Taiwan People's Party—were shredded. At around 8:00 PM on August 11, following the outbreak of the entire case, K'o sent a LINE message instructing Moko company head Li Wen-chuan: "Shred the Moko accounts on your desk." After cross-referencing relevant fund flows, investigative personnel also confirmed that the internal accounts of Moko company had been completely destroyed.	Contents of evidence (see page 136 of the indictment)
Dec 24	Prosecutors and anti-corruption authorities also discovered that Shen and K'o secretly met more than 12 times, respectively at the Mayor's Office, Tao Zhu Yin Yuan, and the Core Pacific Group headquarters; based on visitor logs, footage, and relevant persons' cloud Google calendars and testimonies from Tao Zhu Yin Yuan, K'o and Shen mostly met without bodyguards accompanying them, with only "Orange" Hsu Chih-yu following, while Shen was guided by his confidant Chu Ya-hu.	Contents of evidence (see pages 39, 40, 41, 101, and 102 of the indictment)
Dec 25	Combining both cases yields a total of 26 defendants, with rumors estimating that at least 11 will be indicted, among whom 5 are detained and will be transferred to the Taipei District Court on the 26th. Based on the investigative progress over the past 4 months, it is anticipated that K'o and others will be indicted on a total of 5 major charges, including profiteering under the Anti-Corruption Act, accepting bribes in breach of official duties, public fund misappropriation under the Criminal Code, money laundering, and breach of trust. K'o may face imprisonment of 10 years or more.	Investigative content, conclusion status of the investigation; 11 individuals were indeed indicted according to the time and content of the indictment

The aforementioned reporting on the case details not only made public investigative contents and processes, but also involved publicizing the contents of evidence, methods of evidence authentication, witness statements, and investigative methods of fund tracing—all of which are legally "strictly prohibited from being made public" (Articles 9(1)(2), (3), (6), and (11) of the Directions for the Implementation of Non-Publicity of Investigations). The violations are of a severely serious nature. Due to the severe leakage of investigative contents, the Prosecutor-General instructed the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office to ascertain the facts and truth in accordance with the law on October 25, but whether accountability can be genuinely enforced remains subject to considerable doubt.

3. Nine Questions on Blatant Investigations: Competent Authorities Must Promptly Clarify and Respond

In response to the aforementioned severe violations of the non-publicity of investigations, our Foundation publicly raises the following questions for the general public to jointly examine the response of investigative agencies, and urges competent authorities to swiftly clarify and publicly respond:

1. Regarding the parts in the table above where media reports matched the facts of the indictment, please have the TDPO explain the reasons one by one. Why were media able to obtain information during the investigative stage that is accessible only to internal case-handling personnel (e.g., witness statements, contents of evidence)?
2. Why did the aforementioned leaked investigative secrets exclusively end up in the hands of Mirror Media?
3. Over the four-month period from August to the present, why have the TDPO and related units continuously and blatantly leaked investigative contents? What review measures have been taken? Why were the media still able to accurately grasp the indictment situation at the very last moment before the indictment?
4. According to Mirror Media's statement on June 8, 2023: "Judicial reporters of all media outlets may enter and leave the TDPO freely for reporting by holding access cards in accordance with regulations." May we ask whether reporters were still able to enter and leave the TDPO using access cards to conduct interviews during the investigation of the T'o-che K'o case? What was the scope of areas accessible to them?
5. Following the above, does the TDPO have complete records and inventories of reporters entering and leaving relevant areas of the TDPO using access cards? Did relevant reporters enter or leave around the time the aforementioned reports were exposed? Are there records of communication between the relevant reporters and the investigators of this case?
6. Does the TDPO admit that a leak indeed occurred in this case? If so, does the TDPO bear responsibility? What are the legal and administrative responsibilities of the personnel involved? How should the Chief Prosecutor of the TDPO be held accountable? If not, who was the person leaking the secrets, and which agency should be held responsible?
7. What is the legal basis for reporters to freely enter the TDPO using access cards? Will this be reviewed? Aside from the TDPO, do other prosecutors offices experience similar situations?
8. According to the media-tour activities organized by the MOJ on June 14, 2023, and August 29, 2024, almost all itineraries consisted of unrelated sightseeing tours. In response to this, the MOJ failed to provide a reasonable response or review to Legislator Huang Kuo-chang's interpellation. Does the MOJ have any further explanation regarding this? Will it proactively disclose the implementation status and outcome reports of the same budget item over the past 10 years? Does the National Audit Office have any comments regarding the execution of this budget?
9. Has the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office conducted any investigation into the violations of the non-publicity of investigations during the handling of the T'o-che K'o case? If so, what is the current progress? Can the investigation results of this case be publicly explained to the general public within one month?

Whether the people can trust the judiciary is the foundation upon which a free and democratic constitutional order rests. In our country's legal system, the punishment of crimes is entrusted to prosecutors to independently exercise their powers of investigation and prosecution. Individuals suspected of crimes are protected by the principle of presumption of innocence; in criminal investigative procedures initiated by prosecutors, they have the right to appoint attorneys to defend them based on law and facts so as to safeguard their lawful rights and interests. Politics must not interfere with prosecutors' independent exercise of investigative powers; only thus can people be guaranteed fair treatment in criminal investigative procedures and the impartial execution of the law be promoted.

During the investigation of the T'o-che K'o case, violations of the non-publicity of investigations were severe, and regardless of the subsequent outcome of the case, this has already caused serious damage to the public credibility of the judiciary and infringed upon the lawful rights of the defendant. Although the TDPO stated in a press release yesterday that it had proactively initiated a separate case file on September 9, 2024, to investigate whether relevant personnel violated the principle of the non-publicity of investigations, emphasizing that it would hold individuals strictly accountable according to law, our Foundation once again emphasizes that the investigative information, methods, and evidence contents in media reports largely match the contents of the prosecution's indictment. Even the timing of the indictment, the number of people indicted, and the charges were accurately grasped by specific media outlets, making the violation of the non-publicity of investigations blatantly clear. We urge the TDPO, the High Prosecutors Office, and the MOJ to promptly respond to the questions raised by our Foundation as well as the corresponding penalty mechanisms and improvement measures in order to salvage judicial credibility.

Press Contacts

Lü Cheng-yen, Attorney-at-Law, Director of the Legal Policy Department, Judicial Reform Foundation
Phone: 02-2523-1178 #37
Email: elvin@jrf.org.tw

Lin Ch'eng-ch'ing, Assistant Legal Policy Researcher, Judicial Reform Foundation
Phone: 02-2523-1178 #14
Email: kacan@jrf.org.tw