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ko wen-je's legal team is expected to file an appeal with the taiwan high court as early as this week, but the legal community believes that the chances of the appeal being successful are slim.

taiwan people's party chairman ko wen-je has been detained and denied access to visitors for suspected corruption. as of the 7th, his legal team has not filed an appeal. it is understood that most appeals filed by defendants in the past were rejected. therefore, ko wen-je's legal team is still carefully studying the strategy and is very cautious about the reasons for the appeal. since the appeal period is 10 days from the delivery of the ruling, it is expected that the legal team will file an appeal to the taiwan high court as early as next week, but the legal community believes that the possibility of a successful appeal is slim.

taiwan lawyer: ke wenzhe's success in appeal is approaching zero

it is understood that the taiwan authorities' "integrity commission" found a usb flash drive at ko wen-je's residence, which had the words "2022/11/1 xiao shen 1500 shen qingjing" written on it. the prosecution believes that this is evidence of an agreement between ko wen-je and shen qingjing to accept bribes. how to find the flow of funds in the future to prove that ko wen-je violated his duties and accepted bribes is the top priority of the prosecutors' subsequent investigations. the prosecution has initially grasped the relevant flow of funds and will carefully cross-check and compare the correlation, and will summon shen qingjing to appear in court to reverse the tainted witness.

there are a total of five defendants in custody in the jinghuacheng scandal. in addition to ko wen-je, former taipei deputy mayor peng zhensheng, weijing group chairman shen qingjing, taipei city councilor ying hsiao-wei and assistant wu shun-ming have all filed appeals. the taiwan high court rejected all of them the day before yesterday. even if ko wen-je appeals, the chances of success are very slim.

legal experts pointed out that it is unlikely in practice for a defendant to successfully appeal after being detained, unless the legal team can point out obvious procedural flaws or obvious contradictions in the substantive reasons. otherwise, the judge of the second instance will usually support the first instance. the success rate of overturning the case and sending it back for retrial is very low.

in the detention court, as long as the defendant can "explain" to the judge that there is a serious suspicion of crime and whether there is any risk of collusion and destruction of evidence, he or she will pass the review. this is completely different from the prosecution's "strict proof" of the defendant's guilt after the prosecution. this is also the main reason why most defendants' appeals are rejected.

is ko wen-je likely to resign as chairman of the people's party?

it was also reported that after ko wen-je was detained and denied access to visitors on the 5th, the people's party, facing a leaderless situation, immediately set up an emergency response team, expanded the decision-making circle, and did not nominate an acting people's party chairman, fully supporting and defending ko wen-je's innocence. according to public opinion on the island, ko wen-je once revealed that if he "went to jail" again, he would give an explanation to the people's party.

since ko wen-je was detained, the people's party has not discussed the issue of acting as the party chairman. huang kuo-chang, co-convener of the people's party central emergency response team, emphasized on the 6th that there is no issue of acting as the party chairman for the time being. the party affairs committee is in charge of secretary-general zhou yuxiu, and the emergency response team is also continuing to operate.

people's party members said that the reason was very simple. ko wen-je asked for leave, not resigned. if an acting chairman of the people's party was elected at this time, the outside world would probably interpret it as cutting off ko wen-je, triggering dissatisfaction among the "little grass" (young supporters of the people's party) and setting off another wave of storms for the people's party. the top priority now is to stabilize the morale of the troops, and it is not appropriate to rashly appoint an acting chairman of the people's party. this is also the reason why the emergency response team has repeatedly emphasized to the outside world that there is no issue of an acting chairman of the people's party.

as for when the issue of acting people's party chairmanship might be discussed, people within the people's party believe that the worst-case scenario is that if ko wen-je is prosecuted, not only will acting as chairman of the people's party become an issue that cannot be avoided, but whether the people's party central evaluation committee will punish ko wen-je will also become a headache. once ko wen-je is suspended or removed from the party, the position of chairman of the people's party will inevitably have to be handed over, but it is too early to discuss who will take over.

however, it is understood that when ko wen-je was released without bail a few days ago, he told the people's party that if he went to jail again, he would give an "explanation". some people in the people's party interpreted ko wen-je's statement as that he might have the opportunity to resign as the chairman of the people's party when he met with his lawyer next time, hoping to stop the bleeding for the people's party. the bigwigs of the people's party said that ko wen-je was obviously being politically prosecuted, and everything would be discussed after he came out.

tsai bi-ru, an advisor to the taichung city government and a former member of the people's party who is considered a popular candidate for acting chairman of the people's party, has repeatedly stressed that she has neither the intention nor the qualifications.