從李乙廷案省思賄選認定之問題

Reflections on Problems of the Determination of Vote-buying via the E-Tin Lee Case

陳朝政(Chao-Cheng Chen)

《東吳政治學報》 28卷2期 (2010/06) Pp. 97-151

https://doi.org/10.6418/SJPS.201006.0097

摘要

立法委員李乙廷賄選案，刑事一、二審皆被判無罪，但民事一、二審皆被認定假借捐助名義行求賄選罪而被判當選無效確定，解除立委職務。法官對李乙廷是否賄選有截然不同的認定，將使法律的可預見性降低，而產生下列問題：（一）從個人面來看，這不但使候選人、選舉人難以適從，也使當事人的權益與名譽受到影響。（二）從法治面來看，這或將形成「政治因素影響法院賄選訴訟審理」的質疑空間，不利於民主法治教育的實施與司法公信力的建立；（三）從政治面來看，上述問題連帶產生民主選舉的公平性問題。 問題肇因於兩大因素：一是法律規範面之因素，因法律對賄選的界定與解釋不明確，致使法官有極大的自由心證的裁判空間。若自由心證違背經驗法則與論理法則，將影響裁判之品質。二是司法結構面之因素，在法官獨立審判的基本原則下，法官裁判常有不同的法律見解，加上民、刑事心證門檻標準不同，也容易造成民、刑事判決之歧異。 本文建議修改選舉法規，將賄選標準具體化，作為解決賄選定義不明確問題之根本方法。若在短期內修法的可能性不高，則建議儘速落實司法改革，以提升裁判品質、統一法律見解及改革審判體系等方式來解決賄選裁判歧異之問題。

關鍵字

賄選 ； 選舉訴訟 ； 選罷法

並列摘要

Former Legislator E-Tin Lee was acquitted of vote-buying under the first and second judgment at criminal court. However, he was convicted of doing so under the first and second judgment at civil court with the reason that he conducted bribery in the name of a donation. Lee was then removed from his position as a legislator. The significant inconsistency between the criminal and the civil tribunals' judgments not only lead to the decreasing predictability of laws, but also the following problems: (1) From the perspective of individuals, the court's decisions confused candidates and voters and had a negative influence on the defendant's rights and credibility. (2) From the perspective of the rule of law, such inconsistency might lead to a suspicion of political involvement in the courts' decision-making process. Such suspicion may be harmful for the education of democracy and the rule of law as well as the credibility of the justice system. (3) From the perspective of politics, the controversial issues mentioned above may lead to suspicions of the fairness of democratic elections.
The problems can be attributed to two major factors. The first factor is the capability of laws. The vagueness in definition and explanation of vote-buying allows the judges to make discretions. It may hurt the quality of jurisdiction if the discretions go beyond common empirical and logic rules. The second factor is the judicial structure. Since each judge hears cases independently, they often give judgments based on different legal interpretations. The criminal tribunal and the civil tribunal abide by different standards for discretions, which can also lead to inconsistent judgments.
This article suggests amending the election laws to specify the definition of vote buying, in order to tackle the root cause of the ill-defined problem of vote buying. If it is not possible to amend the laws in the short term, then this article suggests implementing the judicial reform as soon as possible, in order to solve judgment differences on vote buying by enhancing judgment quality, uniting differences in legal interpretation, and reforming the trial system.

並列關鍵字

vote-buying ； electoral lawsuit ； election law

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