On Tuesday, a bill regulating retirement pension payments calculated by combining time served as a civil servant with time served in a non-governmental organization or society passed its third legislative reading.
Monthly retirement payments for retired civil servants who have had their pensions calculated based on time served as a civil servant in combination with time served as an official of a political party during the one-party state era are to be recalculated and excessive payments are to be recovered.
Ministry of Civil Service data shows that there are more than 200 former political appointees and retired civil servants receiving such payments.
The ministry has said that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials are the only ones who benefit from such payments.
The effects of the new law will be that former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and others will have to repay excessive payments. This is belated justice not only for taxpayers, but also for all military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers.
The right to add up time served as a party official with that working as a civil servant is a product of the one-party state of the past.
During the KMT dictatorship, serving the state meant serving the party, but serving the party did not necessarily mean serving the state. Most dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) opposing the KMT and intellectuals spoke up to serve the country, based on their desire to promote freedom, democracy and human rights.
However, the KMT did all it could to suppress such action, because such universal values stood in direct opposition to the KMT’s one-party dictatorship; it knew it would have had to deal with competition between political parties and the possibility of having to step down should the nation develop to the level where every person had freedom, democracy and human rights.
The most frightening part of the one-party state was not that the party and the state were one and the same, but that the party overrode the state.
During the one-party state, the KMT treasury’s direct access to the national treasury served as a fig leaf for the party elite, allowing them to keep up the pretense that they were free of corruption.
The national treasury fed straight into the party treasury, which served the party elite. This is what “clean and non-corrupt behavior” means, according to the KMT’s dictionary.
While the party’s access to the national treasury brought benefits to the party, the nation did not benefit from KMT funds.
The result was that after several decades, the KMT became the world’s wealthiest political party. No party chairman ever made it completely clear how many zeros were needed to express its astronomical wealth.
One way of looking at it is that combining service in the KMT with service as a civil servant was just another version of the party’s direct access to the national treasury.
Adding the number of years served as a party official to the years served as a civil servant when calculating pension payments would mean being openly paid by taxpayers, but doing it the other way round makes it seem as if the money came from the party treasury, while this in fact was also taxpayers’ money.
The excessive funds that affiliates of the KMT received should of course be recovered in the same way that ill-gotten party assets are being recovered. This is the only way to realize transitional justice.
KMT-affiliated organizations, such as the National Women’s League of the Republic of China, are yet another way the party has directly accessed the national coffers.
Research by legislators has showed that the Women’s League’s assets and income include — at least — funds transfered from the government to the KMT, direct government subsidies, film and theater ticket taxes, cotton taxes, defense taxes and military benefit taxes.
Of these, the military benefit tax alone amounts to NT$24 billion (US$796 million), according to preliminary investigations by the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee.
The Ministry of Justice has issued several requests that the Women’s League provide information about the receipt and use of these funds, but the league has not been forthcoming.
As a result, the ministry has issued an ultimatum: Unless detailed information about the receipt and use of the tax is provided by May 20, the “person in charge of the league will be replaced if that is what it takes.”
In fact, the Women’s League is just the tip of the iceberg, and it is evidence that the implementation of transitional justice will be a tough battle.
In addition, there is continued external pressure from Beijing and internal pressure from pension reform protesters, who tend to politicize everything. This means that the reformers must first make plans and then implement them within a fixed time frame.
One example of this is how the licenses for two channels belonging to Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) were resolutely revoked because BCC was no longer involved in “broadcasting to the enemy.”
The licenses were instead handed over to Hakka Television Service and Taiwan Indigenous Television. In one fell swoop, this put an end to the company’s tactic of dragging its feet to maintain its monopoly on public resources.
Remnants of the old one-party state, such as ill-gotten party assets, the practice of combining service in the KMT with service as a civil servant, and acting through affiliate organizations and individuals, have created an abnormal situation in Taiwan.
If the nation’s democracy is to set things straight, it is of even greater importance to reach up to the former top leadership of the one-party state: Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
If all remnants of the one-party state are removed, but the core role played by Chiang is not addressed and symbols of dictatorship are left in place — such as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and bronze statues of Chiang — then transitional justice will not be able to clear the battlefield and the children of the one-party state, like former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), will still have a chance to launch a counterattack.
Transitional justice is not a matter of historical perspective and it does not allow hypocritical talk about “mutual understanding.” Germany’s fixing blame on the Nazis and its untiring pursuit of the guilty could serve as a model for Taiwan.
Finally, the government must keep being reminded that transitional justice requires a social foundation and that a tangible industrial and economic revival, improved employment numbers and rising incomes will provide opportunities for young people, prosperity for the middle-aged and care for the elderly.
If this happens, reform, progress, construction and growth will be stable and long-lasting.
This is the only way that social support for reform will continue to grow stronger, while making it more difficult for anti-reform forces to gain traction.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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