Chen, who is now being tried on four counts of alleged embezzlement of discretionary presidential state affairs funds, accepting bribes and money laundering together with former first lady Wu Shu-chen and other former aides, has already been under "preventative detention" for 167 days since last Nov. 11 and now may be detained for a total of at least 227 days.

The fact that the former president was taken to Taipei County General Hospital in Panchiao May 9 for medical care under guard within hours of his decision to launch a hunger strike to protest his "illegal" detention provides confirmation of the claims by Chen and his lawyers that the former president is poor health and should be released at the very least for medical reasons.

Nevertheless, on Monday, Taipei District Court Judge Tsai Shou-hsun and two other judges accepted claims by Special Investigation Unit prosecutors that it is still necessary to keep ex-president locked in the Taipei Detention Center since he could flee Taiwan, collude with witnesses or damage evidence, even though all testimony and evidence gathering has been completed.

In an apparent exercise of "blaming the victim," the judges also declared that Chen's hunger strike and other actions to protest his "illegal detention" constituted "interference in the judicial process."

In fact, this decision actually provides further reason to suspect that the court is engaging in a politically motivated and punitive abuse of the controversial power of "preventative detention" and has no intention of respecting the hallowed legal principle of the assumption of innocence.

The SIU's claim that two more months of detention is "necessary" holds little water since prosecutors have already completed virtually all evidence gathering in the cases involving the ex-president and there is scant room for Chen to "collude with witnesses" or "destroy evidence" in a case that is now being tried and since Chen will be unable to escape the 24-hour "protection" of National Security Bureau agents.

Particularly noteworthy is the "coincidence" that SIU prosecutors rushed to file a new indictment against Chen and Wu last week claiming that they had accepted bribes from former Taipei 101 chairwoman Diane Chen and former Chinatrust Financial Holdings vice chairman Jeffrey Koo, Jr despite the protestations by both Chen and Koo that funds were indeed political contributions to the Democratic Progressive Party.

The timing of this indictment cannot but spark suspicion that the SIU intends to use an endless series of indictments to keep Chen detained indefinitely and thereby deny the ex-president any room for a fair defense.

Detention as the rule

This court's judgement conflicts with the requirements in democratic legal systems, such as the United States and Germany, that any pre-trial detention must fully be in accordance with the presumption of innocence and that defendants should not be placed under pretrial detention without firm grounds to believe that the suspect will flee or commit further criminal offenses.

In other words, in democratic legal practice, detention is the exception, not the rule.

In light of this principle, Taiwan's own Judicial Yuan has issued a set of "points of attention for courts handling criminal cases" whose Article 28 explicitly requires courts to "exercise caution in the implementation of detention" and instructs that even in the case of "serious crimes," a court "must not place persons under detention without verified necessity."

Through its contravention of the judicial principle of "release as the norm and detention as the exception," its acceptance of the SIU's "coincidental" new indictment and its disregard of Chen's worsening health, the Taipei District Court has shown that it regards such instructions as empty words.

In Taiwan, the release of defendants is now the exception and detention is the rule.

The judgement also conflicts in substancne with numerous articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was promulgated as domestic law last month by President Ma Ying-jeou, including the prescriptions for the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law, not to be subject to arbitrary detention, the right to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of legal defense and not to be compelled to confess guilt.

If a former president's judicial rights can be so cavalierly disregarded, the treatment that judges, prosecutors and the police will mete to ordinary citizens can only be imagined.

We solemnly urge all judicial agencies to realize the momentous significance of the Chen Shui-bian case to Taiwan's future democratic development and recall that their obligation to carry out their duties based on the principles of protection of human rights and respect for professional ethics and prevent the outbreak of a cycle of political vengeance that will undermine the credibility of the judicial system and threaten the foundations of Taiwan's fragile democracy.