TPP Again Accused of Seeking to Change Laws to Benefit Ko Wen-je

THE TPP HAS once again been accused of seeking to change laws in order to benefit party founder Ko Wen-je.

Ko is currently facing up to seventeen years in jail, as well as six years of being deprived of civil rights, in connection with corruption charges. Specifically, Ko is accused of taking 2.1 million NT in bribes in connection with the Core Pacific City Mall. The bribes were in return for enlarging the floor area ratio of the mall in order to give the Core Pacific Group more real estate. To this extent, Ko has come under scrutiny for other financial irregularities, such as that the TPP declared no presidential campaign expenditures in the 2024 elections, and Ko appears to have used the proceeds from a fundraising event to buy an office for himself.

For its part, the TPP has denied the charges, claiming that they are politically motivated persecution by the DPP. The party is built around Ko, the party founder, in preparation for an eventual presidential run by Ko. Without Ko, the party’s future seems far from clear.

The changes pushed for by the TPP are to the Criminal Code. Specifically, the changes would eliminate collusion–the possibility of destruction of evidence–as grounds for pre-trial detentions, as occurred to Ko. Detention periods would also be forbidden, and prosecutors would not be allowed to conduct interrogations at night. The High Court would also be required to make rulings on appeals, and the presence of the defendant would be required for rulings unfavorable to the defendant.

This is not the first time that the TPP has pushed for far-ranging changes to the legal system in order to benefit Ko. Last year, the TPP proposed that legal proceedings be livestreamed in the future.

Unsurprisingly, this proposal met with opposition from lawyers’ organizations such as the Judicial Reform Foundation and 16 other civil society groups representing the legal profession. These groups have instead proposed allowing for livestreaming of only cases involving significant public interest. To this extent, privacy protections for witnesses, experts, and others were also called for. Such groups also proposed that before any implementation of livestreaming of cases, a study should be conducted into the possible impact of such livestreaming, and that a trial period be implemented first before any livestreaming is rolled out.

Indeed, the Taiwan Medical Association and Taiwan Society of Forensic Medicine previously issued a joint statement pointing out that expert witnesses may feel public pressure about their testimony if this is livestreamed in a manner that is hypothetically viewable by anyone, which may cause them to change their testimony or avoid discussing controversial issues. Such expert witnesses could be prone to doxxing or other forms of harassment with the proposal. The Taiwan Criminal Law Society has also stated that privacy rights, particularly impacting marginalized groups, could be violated through livestreaming. Still, such groups did not oppose livestreaming parts of trial procedures.

In a similar timeframe, acting party chair of the TPP, Huang Kuo-chang, too, caused controversy for publicizing what seemed to be recordings from interrogations of Ko Wen-je–except that questions were raised about the veracity of the recordings, which were accused of being AI-generated. Huang seemed to be aiming to drum up public outrage over the statements in the recordings. Nor did Huang, in fact, claim that they were actually recordings of Ko, stating that the recording was for “demonstration purposes.”

Either way, it is to be expected that the TPP will continue to push for legal measures pertaining to Ko. The TPP may be aiming to secure some means of achieving Ko’s release or allowing him to run for president, seeing as the electoral viability of the party will be limited without his presence.