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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 Politics and Judiciary Decisions on Vote-Buying Cases in Southwest Taiwan: A Hierarchical Logit Model

Politics and Judiciary Decisions on Vote-Buying Cases in Southwest Taiwan: A Hierarchical Logit Model

Chung-Li Wu and Chi Huang
2000 / 05
Volume 7, No.1

pp.87-113
10.6612/tjes.2000.07.01.87-113
Paper

Abstract

Vote-buying has long marred Taiwan's elections and this mal- practice has been condemned by all sections of our society. Yet the general public does not seem to trust the judicial system in Tai- wan to be independent of political influences. A number of popular sayings reflect this negative impression of vote-buying cases in the court. For example, it is widely quoted that "the judiciary is dominated by the ruling Kuomintang," that "those elected will be let off, but those lost will be imprisoned," and that "at the first trial a heavy sentence is laid down, at the second trial the sentence is halved, and in the third trial the case is quashed." This paper examines the three-level court's decisions on vote- buying litigation in Southwest Taiwan between 1995 and 1998. A hierarchical logit model is constructed to test whether judgements on vote-buying cases are affected by political factors and, if they are, to what extent. To our amazement, we find that there is no significant relationship between the court's decisions and the party affiliation of the litigants involved, whether the candidates are elected or not, the type of elections, or the judicial procedure of vote-buying cases. In other words, those popular sayings cited above are inconsistent with our findings. Undoubtedly, judicial politics in Taiwan deserves further academic research.

Keywords

vote-buying

the judicial system

election

kuomintang