How difficult can it be to carry out transitional justice? It depends on how it is approached.
Of course, there will be difficulties. It has been difficult in that although the Legislative Yuan has passed the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例) and the Cabinet has set up an Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, efforts to return the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) ill-gotten assets to their rightful owners still face many obstacles — with the most severe coming not from KMT members, but from the judiciary.
Considering the political composition of the Council of Grand Justices, the act would have been thwarted by now had the KMT had enough legislative seats to request a constitutional interpretation.
After the committee froze the KMT’s bank accounts, the party applied to the Taipei High Administrative Court to lift the injunction. The court ruled in favor of the KMT, as many had predicted without even knowing the details of the legal dispute. The committee will most likely appeal the ruling, but its chance of winning is slim, for this is the way things are in Taiwan’s judicial system: The KMT virtually owns the courts.
The KMT has bullied Taiwan for almost 70 years. During that time, the party — devoid of all virtue and rabid as a power-hungry monster — tried its very best to devour all in its path to make them its own. It absorbed military personnel, public servants, public-school teachers and intelligence agents, and gained control of the courts and many civic groups.
Much of the nation’s political system is designed to serve the interests of the KMT by maintaining a party-state system.
Given that, the committee was bound to run into a brick wall. Following the ruling, the KMT Administration and Management Committee director Chiu Da-chan (邱大展) thanked the court for reaching a swift decision, and said: “As the ruling suggests, the court agrees with the KMT and finds the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee’s actions to freeze the party’s assets to be illegal. This proves the KMT was right all along.”
Chiu’s comments, which came immediately after the ruling, showed how self-righteous the party is feeling: It was almost as if he were speaking on the court’s behalf.
That the court is siding with the KMT should surprise no one. As Florentine politician Niccolo Machiavelli said 500 years ago: One “must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.”
For the KMT, nothing is more important than its assets, not even the reputation of its founder and former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). It would do whatever it takes to win the case.
Does the committee fully understand the level of corruption in Taiwan’s judicial system?
Committee Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said that, as a former lawyer, he understands that “some cases you win, some cases you lose.”
Was he being naive? Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said a long time ago that 70 percent of the judges in Taiwan dislike politicians from the pan-green camp. There was little chance that the court would rule in favor of the committee.
In 2010, to imprison former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), a court abandoned the standard definition of taking bribes stipulated in the law — providing service directly related to one’s capacity as a public servant in exchange for personal gain — and invented a new definition that included cases where one provides a service using one’s influence as a public servant in exchange for personal gain.
Prosecutor-General Yen Ta-ho (顏大和) effortlessly rejected former minister of transportation and communications Kuo Yao-chi’s (郭瑤琪) extraordinary appeal. The courts are filled with people like Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) and former Special Investigation Division prosecutor Yue Fang-ju (越方如).
How easy can it be to win a court case when your opponent is from the pan-blue camp?
Is carrying out transitional justice difficult? Yes, it most certainly is, as it entails first implementing judicial reform.
How about an easier way to carry out transitional justice? A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator said in a question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan that the Republic of China Military Academy anthem, which contains the phrases “party flag flying” and celebrates “the revolution,” is virtually a KMT anthem.
Several retired military officers shamelessly defended it.
A retired military officer criticized the lawmaker for being ideological, completely unaware that the anthem’s lyrics are based on the party-state ideology.
Former minister of national defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) tried to skirt the issue by saying that history must be respected.
The only place where the history of the KMT belongs is the trash can. The Ministry of National Defense should understand that the army is paid for by the taxpayers’ hard-earned money.
The academy anthem can be changed with a directive from the Executive Yuan. Transitional justice takes many forms, and this would be free and easy to achieve.
However, there is another song which is virtually a KMT anthem that presents a bigger issue: The song Taiwanese call their national anthem, which literally speaks of “the aims of our party.”
There are no laws governing the national anthem. President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration only needs to give an order to change it. This would be an important step to implement transitional justice without amending the Constitution.
When there are such easy ways to promote transitional justice, why waste time on judicial reform, which is a virtually impossible task? The public is beginning to wonder if the DPP is serious about promoting transitional justice.
Chin Heng-wei is a political commentator.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry