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By Lo Kuo-chia
and Jake Chung /
Staff reporter, with staff writer
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) yesterday criticized a bail decision in a loan sharking case involving a former prosecutor, questioning the consistency of judicial decisions.
Former Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office official Lin Yu-chun (林渝鈞), who is accused of using straw names to lend more than NT$100 million (US$3.14 million) to companies in need of financing and charging annual interest rates of 42 to 84 percent, was indicted on Tuesday over alleged contraventions of the Criminal Code and the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法).
Prosecutors said that Lin collected about NT$40 million in illicit interest.
Photo: Taipei Times
The Keelung District Court initially set bail for Lin at NT$20,000. The prosecutors’ office appealed the decision.
On Friday, the court increased the bail to NT$200,000 and ordered that Lin’s movements be monitored electronically.
Weng yesterday said it was absurd that the court set bail lower than the average for theft or driving under the influence of alcohol.
Weng cited the case of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) as an example.
Bail for Ko was set at NT$70 million in September last year when he was charged over accepting bribes, profiteering and breach of trust, Weng said.
Suspects in a case of alleged forged signatures in last year’s referendums to mass recall legislators had bail as high as NT$10 million, she said.
Meanwhile, the Changhua District Court released a person accused of drug-driving without setting bail, she added.
To the average person, the rulings are extremely arbitrary, she said.
Such rulings “are reasons public trust in the judiciary is low and why there is an unbridgeable gap between the public and the law,” she said.
Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Kao Chin-chih (高金枝) said that the decision of the Keelung District Court was part of an ongoing trial, so she would not comment except to say that the nature of a crime, while important, is not the sole factor in determining whether a suspect is detained.
