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Wang Chien-shien comes under fire after interview
By Lee Hsin-fang and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Former Control Yuan president Wang Chien-shien talks to radio host Clara Chou about the new Control Yuan members and former Government Information Office official Kuo Kuan-ying during an interview yesterday.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Former Control Yuan member Chien Lin Hui-chun (錢林惠君) criticized former Control Yuan president Wang Chien-shien’s defense of controversial bureaucrat Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) in a radio interview yesterday, saying his comments were “without class” due to Wang’s lack of understanding of the case.
The rehiring of former Government Information Office (GIO) official Kuo by the Taiwan Provincial Government in February caused public outrage after he made inflammatory comments that were “derogatory to the nation’s sovereign status” in 2009, leading to his dismissal from the GIO.
The Taiwan Provincial Government employed Kuo as its foreign affairs secretary-general on March 22 and he filed for retirement on April 22, causing more controversy about civil servants being promoted to obtain a better pension just prior to their retirement.
Chien Lin had volunteered to investigate the case, but had to drop it due to her term ending.
Wang made his comments in an interview with Hit FM radio host Clara Chou (周玉蔻) yesterday morning.
Chou asked Wang what could have motivated Chien Lin to comment that she would not let the Kuo case go when she no longer had the authority to investigate it after stepping down as a Control Yuan member.
Wang said it was a classic example of how “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” adding that though he was not pointing the finger, sometimes when people get power-hungry they do crazy things.
Wang said that the Control Yuan had persecuted Kuo after he had simply written some things under a nom de plume that people of a certain ethnicity did not like to hear, adding that it led to Kuo not having a job for three years.
Kuo, under the nom de plume Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽), submitted an article to a popular commentary Web site in 2008 referring to himself as a “high-class Mainlander,” saying that “[China] should spend many years suppressing [Taiwanese] instead of granting [them] any political freedom once they have taken Taiwan by force,” in addition to calling Taiwan a “ghost island” and calling Taiwanese taibazi (台巴子, Taiwanese rednecks).
When the former GIO dismissed Kuo from his position on grounds of violating the Public Functionaries Discipline Act (公務員懲戒法), he was suspended from taking another governmental position for three years.
Wang said that Kuo had finally found a new job after three years, entitling him to his pension, but then Control Yuan members began to criticize the Taiwan Provincial Government for its “questionable employment practices.”
When Chou asked if Kuo was one of the “oppressed,” Wang said he thought Kuo was certainly oppressed, but he declined to comment on whether Kuo was righteous.
Wang said Kuo had been punished enough when he was removed from his post at the GIO, adding that the Control Yuan had considered amending the Public Functionaries Discipline Act to remove all pension privileges for any civil servant that had been impeached. He said it decided not to, as it would have been a human rights violation.
Wang said he knew he would be criticized for standing up for Kuo, adding that if one wished to see justice upheld, one had to be prepared for injustice.
source: Taipei Times
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