Yen Ching-piao's Parole Manipulates the Rule of Law
Last edited: 2026-07-27
According to media reports, former legislator Yen Ching-piao, who was serving a prison sentence for corruption along with a previously fixed aggregate sentence of 7 years, passed his initial parole review at the Taichung Prison on June 3. The Ministry of Justice swiftly approved the parole review, and the Taiwan High Court Taichung Branch Court lightning-fast ruled to grant parole with protective supervision. In a mere four days, Yen was released from prison on June 6.
Putting aside the fact that this is Yen Ching-piao's second imprisonment, he remarkably managed to pass parole on his very first review. Combined with media reports that those in power orchestrated and spearheaded the amendment to Article 99-1 of the Accounting Act back then—which caused a public uproar and yet required a request for reconsideration to salvage their image—it inevitably raises suspicions of whether the judiciary was asked to cooperate in returning a favor. At the very least, taking a mere four days from passing the initial parole review to release from prison is definitively the most "efficient" procedure in judicial history.
Whether There Was an Exception Should Be Clarified
Judges with experience presiding over criminal cases all know that while prosecutors' applications for parole with protective supervision are indeed expedited cases, the statutory handling deadline is actually five months. Naturally, because correctional institutions usually dare not release inmates until they receive the ruling (though in practice, some wait a long time for the ruling and release them beforehand), judges customarily issue rulings and deliveries as quickly as possible—especially when encountering major holidays, such as a few days before Chinese New Year's Eve. However, in Yen Ching-piao's case, the case was assigned at noon (courts typically assign cases right before closing time), the ruling was issued by the judge that same afternoon, and the court clerk cooperated by rushing to produce the official document that very day, delivering it at lightning speed to the correctional institution for Yen Ching-piao to receive before closing time. This is definitely not standard practice. It was neither Chinese New Year's Eve nor a rush at the end of the month to pad case-closure statistics. Does the Taiwan High Court Taichung Branch Court really care that much about an inmate's rights?
As for the parole review procedure 1, based on my past years of experience as a parole review committee member at the Taichung Women's Prison, not to mention the unwritten convention that major criminals or recidivists are usually not granted parole on their first review, even if the parole review committee passes the initial review, the official paperwork process sent to the Ministry of Justice for review and approval, and then sent back to the prison, does not happen this fast. Therefore, when dealing with inmates whose remaining sentences are less than two months (because their previous applications were repeatedly rejected), the prison authorities would advise us to simply reject the parole outright, as by the time the paperwork is completed, the inmate's sentence would have already expired, rendering parole unnecessary.
Next is the "high efficiency" of the Parole Review Committee. The Parole Review Committee meets once a month. Usually, the number of cases to be reviewed at one time—taking a women's prison with relatively fewer inmates as an example—in my experience, ranged from a minimum of 30 cases to as many as 70 or 80 cases. It is impossible that the Taichung Prison reviewed only Yen Ching-piao during that review meeting; were the other inmates who passed parole also released within four days? Will the Ministry of Justice disclose the data to explain this? And can the Taiwan High Court Taichung Branch Court truly claim there was no special exception made for Yen Ching-piao?
Whether official paperwork is handled with a normal mindset is something the public can clearly see. Last year, when the KMT expelled Wang Jin-pyng from the party, the Central Election Commission (CEC) did not dare slack off for even a day, delivering the documents to the Legislative Yuan even after office hours to prevent Wang Jin-pyng from applying to the court for a provisional injunction to stop the deprivation of his status and execution of his duties as a legislator and legislative speaker. How sorrowful is it that the nation's highest electoral authority would so submissively kowtow to the ruling party and willingly act as a political party's limb? As for whether the Chairperson of the CEC was subsequently nominated as the President of the Control Yuan for this reason, and whether they can truly remain above partisan politics, it inevitably leaves people doubtful.
The Supreme Court Has Also Fallen
Such miraculous "judicial exceptions" are not uncommon under this government, because the Supreme Court has long since "fallen." In former President Chen Shui-bian's Lungtan land acquisition case and Chen Min-hsun's bribery case, the Supreme Court not only took the extremely rare (and perhaps unprecedented for that panel) step of rendering its own judgment—finalizing the conviction and fixing the aggregate sentence—but also overturned, with just a few words, the "statutory official powers doctrine" it had established and applied for many years, replacing it with the empty "substantial influence doctrine." Compared to the ultra-cooperative and lightning-fast release procedure in Yen Ching-piao's case this time, isn't this manipulating the judiciary to a tee? The Judicial Yuan's newly established "Committee for the Review of Final Judgments" perhaps ought to review whether there were procedural flaws in Chen's case after all.
Comparative Group:
1. [Ministry of Justice - Rule of Law Q&A - Corrections]
Why is the timeframe for reviewing parole cases more protracted than ordinary official documents? Why are parole cases that already meet the provisions of Article 77 of the Criminal Code still rejected?
1. The review of parole cases requires procedures such as submission, receipt, adjudication, and approval. Coupled with the large volume of cases each month, in pursuit of thoroughness and the protection of inmates' rights, the process is longer than that for ordinary official documents, leading to public misunderstandings. The Ministry fully understands the families' longing and their desire for an early reunion with the inmates, and naturally seeks various ways to improve and enhance efficiency, enabling inmates to successfully reintegrate into society.
2. Although Paragraph 1 of Article 77 of the Criminal Code stipulates that "a person who is serving a sentence of imprisonment and has genuine evidence of repentance may, after serving more than fifteen years of a life sentence, more than twenty years in the case of a recidivist, or more than one-half of a fixed-term sentence—or two-thirds in the case of a recidivist—be petitioned by the prison to the Ministry of Justice for release on parole. However, this does not apply to those whose execution of a fixed-term sentence totals less than six months." Nevertheless, the aforementioned provisions are merely statutory requirements for parole, not a mandate that parole must be granted once a life sentence exceeds fifteen years, or a fixed-term sentence exceeds one-half or two-thirds. The review of parole cases must still meticulously examine factors such as the inmate's criminal record, the circumstances of the crime, the harm caused to society, and their remorse while serving the sentence, in order to uphold social justice and fulfill the functions of parole.
This article is an AI-generated translation of the original Chinese text. In the event of any discrepancy, the Chinese version shall prevail.
