Former judge Yan Nanquan was charged with inappropriate contact with wealthy businessman Weng Maozhong (pictured).

(file photo)

[Reporter Wu Zhengfeng/Taipei Report] The Court of Disciplinary Court found that Yan Nanquan, a former judge of the Supreme Court (retired in 2015), received a shirt as a gift from Weng Maozhong, the head of Jiahe Group, and informed Weng Maozhong of the lawsuit information of his company "Yihua" when he was in office. Guan said that his son's military service distribution and other behaviors were indeed in violation, but the statute of limitations of the old Civil Service Disciplinary Law exceeded the statute of limitations, and the judgment was exempted from discussion.

The duty court pointed out that on May 30, 2001, Yan Nanquan knew that Weng Maozhong or his Yihua Company had been or might be involved in lawsuits in the future, but he accepted the shirts and gifts from Weng, informed Weng of the progress of the case, and even asked Weng to entrust his son The issue of military service distribution is enough to lower the respect of others for judges, causing the public to lose confidence in judges and damage judicial trust. It violates the first point of the code of conduct for judges, "Judges should maintain a noble character, be cautious in words and deeds, be honest and self-restraining, and avoid improper or easy to be judged. Behaviors considered inappropriate", judge social and financial self-discipline matters point 1 "judges are not allowed to socialize with parties involved in the case, related parties, their agents, and defenders", point 6 "judges should avoid things that will damage the judge's image "Entertainment or association" and other regulations, the circumstances are serious, and punishment is necessary.

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The job court stated that based on the principle of "from the old to the light" of the entity, the collegial panel believed that Yan Nanquan's violations should be subject to the old public punishment law. After considering the number of violations, damaging the judge's image, and damaging the judicial trust of the public, the collegiate panel decided to "downgrade" the punishment , Weiyan’s last violation ended in 2010, but the Supervisory Yuan did not initiate impeachment and transfer until 2022, which has exceeded the 10-year punishment period, so the judgment was dismissed.

As for Weng Maozhong's notebook records that he had dinner with Yan Nanquan and others 16 times, the duty court held that it only contained the date, time, place and personnel, but did not contain any discussion of the case or other content that could be considered to be inappropriate, and there was no positive evidence. Violation of circumstances, this part is not subject to punishment.

However, the Supervisory Court accused Yan Nanquan of trying the "Zhu Qingen Civil Case" and "Paris Bank Case" implicated by Weng Maozhong, but he did not evade and committed major violations. The professional court stated that there was no code of ethics for judges in our country back then, only the code of conduct for judges. It is not yet clear how to interpret and apply the recusal of the case; and the judge’s easy or arbitrary request for recusal of the case is also a violation of the ethical commandment that judges should not refuse to try. .

To sum up, some of Yan Nan's actions were exempted from discussion, and some were not punished. The whole case can be appealed.

The case was heard by the fourth division of the first instance of the professional court, and the members were the presiding judge Wu Sanlong (a judge of the disciplinary court), the associate judge Ning Xin (the president of the Kaohsiung High School Branch), the appointed judge Lin Huiyu (a judge of the Supreme Administrative Court), and the counselor Shen Qiongtao (Distinguished Professor of the Department of Social Work, National Taiwan University), Huang Yibi (Executive Director of the Human Rights Convention Implementation Monitoring Alliance).