With their term expiring at the end of July, a group of sixth-term Control Yuan commissioners has chosen a remarkable way to go out: reopening an investigation into National Taiwan University's academic integrity procedures—the same procedures used four years ago to revoke the master's degree of Lin Chia-lung (林智堅), then mayor of Hsinchu City. Taiwan faces local elections this year, and the Lin thesis scandal was widely seen as the first domino that toppled the DPP in the 2022 local elections. Now it is back.
President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) finds himself in an awkward position. He cannot instruct sitting commissioners on which cases to pursue. But the Lin case implicates not only Lin himself but also Chen Ming-tung (陳明通), Lin's mentor and former director-general of the National Security Bureau, and—by extension—former President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the dominant figure of the DPP faction to which all three belong. Whether the commissioners are trying to help or harm those individuals is, remarkably, unclear. What is clear is that this investigation raises serious questions about the Control Yuan's institutional judgment.
A Watchdog That Forgot What It Watches
The commissioners issued a public statement defending their decision. They argued, first, that the investigation was initiated in response to a public petition and that media characterizations of it as a "politically motivated witch hunt" were inaccurate. Second, they insisted that their inquiry into NTU's review procedures is entirely separate from any other case, including an ongoing probe into construction irregularities at the Hsinchu baseball stadium. Third, they stated that they exercise their powers independently and asked critics to understand the law before attacking the institution.
These points are not without merit, but they do not withstand scrutiny.
On the first point: the Control Yuan received more than 15,000 public petitions last year—roughly 1,200 to 1,300 per month. The overwhelming norm is that petitions are received and not acted upon. The commissioners' claim that a public petition obligates them to investigate is simply not how the institution operates in practice. The relevant question is not whether a petition was filed, but why this particular petition was selected from among thousands—and by whom. That question has not been answered.
On the second point: the commissioners are correct that the Hsinchu stadium case and the NTU thesis case are legally unrelated. But the more fundamental problem is that the Control Yuan's core mandate is to oversee government officials and administrative conduct—not to scrutinize the internal academic review standards of universities. The stadium case, which involves questions of official negligence in a public construction project, is precisely the kind of matter the Control Yuan exists to examine. An inquiry into NTU's thesis review procedures is not.
Why Universities Are Off-Limits
Under Taiwan's Constitution and the Control Yuan Act, the agency holds powers of investigation, censure, impeachment, and disciplinary referral over administrative bodies and their personnel. Public universities receive government funding, and faculty members fall within a broad but legally significant category that is not equivalent to civil servants under the Civil Service Act—unless they also hold administrative positions.
The Control Yuan does have legitimate jurisdiction over certain university matters: administrative conduct, budget use, hiring procedures, and student admissions. It has previously censured universities over mishandled sexual harassment cases and, in a high-profile controversy, impeached former NTU president Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) over the process by which he was appointed—a case that itself sparked fierce debate about interference with university autonomy.
But NTU's thesis review committee and academic integrity committee are a different matter entirely. Taiwan's University Act explicitly guarantees academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Constitutional Interpretation No. 380 established that universities have the right to determine their own curricula and academic standards, free from uniform regulation by the Ministry of Education. If even the Ministry cannot dictate those standards, the Control Yuan has no business doing so either. Investigating the "review mechanisms and standards" of NTU's academic integrity body is not a legitimate exercise of the Control Yuan's oversight function—it is an intrusion into precisely the domain the constitution places off-limits.
A Four-Year-Old Case, a Very Convenient Moment
The Lin thesis case was formally concluded years ago. NTU completed its academic integrity review, revoked Lin's degree, and submitted its full report to the Ministry of Education. Lin initially filed an administrative appeal but withdrew it the following year. The case was closed.
Four years later, a public petition has apparently prompted the Control Yuan to reopen it. The identity of the petitioner—whoever managed to have their submission rise to the top of more than 15,000 filed in a single year—has not been disclosed. One might reasonably wonder whether it was Lin himself, who refused to appear before NTU's review committee; his mentor Chen, who has long maintained Lin was wronged; or some other interested party with sufficient influence to command the commissioners' attention where thousands of ordinary petitioners could not.
Su Hung-da (蘇宏達), the former dean of NTU's College of Social Sciences who chaired the thesis review process, has said he is willing to cooperate with the Control Yuan but has called for NTU's full review report to be made public. That is a reasonable position. It is less clear that the commissioners themselves have thought through the implications of what they are doing.
Among the sitting commissioners are a former university president and a former vice minister of education. They cannot claim ignorance of where the Control Yuan's authority properly ends. The sixth-term Control Yuan has spent its entire tenure struggling to shed a reputation for partisan accommodation rather than independent oversight. Its budget has been cut without generating public sympathy. Choosing to close out that tenure by reopening a politically charged academic dispute—one already resolved through proper institutional channels—does nothing to rehabilitate that reputation.
Four years ago, the Lin thesis case damaged the DPP at the ballot box. Four years on, it risks becoming the defining failure of a Control Yuan that never quite managed to act like one. The commissioners investigating this matter face a choice between political calculation and institutional integrity. It should not be a difficult one.
