In a July 2009 article titled “Reversing miscarriages of justice is my ambition and my career,” National Taiwan University professor Chiu Rong-jeo (邱榮舉) said Taiwan should cling to the essence of transitional justice and put it into practice.
According to the US-based International Center for Transitional Justice, doing so can be broadly divided into seven tasks: truth-seeking; criminal prosecutions; reparations initiatives; memorialization; reconciliation; institutional reform; and vetting and removing abusive public employees. The government and the Compensation Foundation for Wrongful Trials on Charges of Sedition and Espionage During the Martial Law Period could start with these practices.
The government and the foundation have a responsibility and an obligation to cooperate with non-governmental organizations to push for the implementation of transitional justice in Taiwan, and improving continuous cooperation with non-governmental organizations would be a good way to bring about swift results. This would also allow students and younger Taiwanese with lofty ideals to participate in large-scale research projects about human rights and political persecution.
It has been 17 years since the foundation was established, but progress on transitional justice over the 228 Incident and the Martial Law era from 1949 to 1987 has been limited. In particular, nothing has been done regarding the prosecution of perpetrators. Some say this is due to restrictions caused by the statute of limitations on criminal prosecution and that a breakthrough would not be possible unless legislation aimed at resolving the issue is passed.
According to Article 9-2 of the Compensation Act for Wrongful Trials on Charges of Sedition and Espionage During the Martial Law Period (戒嚴時期不當叛亂暨匪諜審判案件補償條例): “The foundation shall return the documents and files it has requested according to the first paragraph as soon as the investigation is completed. The documents and files may not be used for purposes other than the investigation.”
Since the use of documents and files is restricted and many victims have since died, the truth-seeking process has become more difficult. It is therefore necessary to promptly amend the unreasonable regulation in the Compensation Act.
As 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel said: “To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
With the codification of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the government pledged that Taiwan would be a “human-rights-oriented nation.”
Today, another power transfer is taking place, with the new legislature having sworn in on Feb. 1.
Taiwanese can only hope that the new legislators would not forget that post-war transitional justice has yet to be realized.
They should look to the international process for drafting transitional justice legislation and give importance to human rights to implement Taiwan’s long-delayed transitional justice.
For example, the wrongful fraud and tax claims made against Tai Ji Men Qigong Academy were brought under questioning in late 1996. After 10 years and seven months, the organization was eventually found not guilty of fraud, while the tax case is still under investigation.
Hopefully, the new legislature would pay greater attention to the reform of tax legislation. If a wrongful case were to occur, a person alone would not be able to fight the government.
Chen Yi-nan is director of the Northern Taiwan Society.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under