On Tuesday next week, the Judicial Yuan is to decide whether it would issue a constitutional interpretation for the Act Governing the Settlement 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), following a complaint by the Control Yuan.
Ever since the promulgation of the act, people from the party-state elite and vested interests have said it is unconstitutional, ignoring that the legislation follows Germany’s transitional justice laws.
Even more absurd is the Taipei High Administrative Court judges calling for such a constitutional interpretation, although the request has no merit in terms of democracy and the rule of law.
Leaving aside the issue of the Control Yuan members appointed by former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) submitting this request for a constitutional interpretation in a case that has nothing to do with the powers of Control Yuan members, the Council of Grand Justices must reject the complaint from these party-state Control Yuan members — who are only intended to protect the party assets — because it does not meet procedural requirements.
Even more objectionable, the judges’ call for a constitutional interpretation completely ignores the laws in Germany and other democracies in Europe, as well as those in the US.
They are calling the act unconstitutional without investigating the facts in accordance with the law, which harms the public’s respect for judges.
When Taipei High Administrative Court judges Lee Yu-ching (李玉卿), Chung Chi-wei (鐘啟煒) and Lee Chun-hao (李君豪) submitted their request for a constitutional interpretation, they were of the opinion that addressing the party assets issue only requires a civil lawsuit, fully ignoring that Germany resorted to special legislation to be able to resolve the statute of limitations issue.
Even more absurd, all they had to do was to search the Control Yuan’s verdict database to find out that a simple civil lawsuit would not be sufficient to resolve the party asset issue, which originated during the authoritarian era and whose statute of limitations has already expired.
In addition, a civil verdict states that “based on concerns of legal stability and since the statute of limitations and exclusion periods already have expired, and since it is possible that a third party has obtained the rights, it could in practice be difficult to meet the principles of the rule of law, so it seems that the only feasible way is to create special legislation to make the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] fulfill its duty to return its ill-gotten party assets.”
It is clear that the judges filed the request on the KMT’s behalf without conducting even the most basic research, such as searching previous verdicts.
Even worse, the trio claim that the act is directed at a specific political party, namely the KMT.
This contradicts the facts, as the first party to be fined by the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee was the Democratic Action Party, not the KMT, when it was fined NT$1 million (US$32,762 at the current exchange rate) by the committee in its first administrative fine on April 27.
This could also be easily verified online, but the trio failed their duty to conduct due diligence, which only goes to show that a few judges are making emotional decisions aimed at protecting ill-gotten party assets.
Huang Di-ying is a lawyer and vice chairman of the Taiwan Forever Association.
Translated by Perry Svensson
They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed. Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
President William Lai (賴清德) recently attended an event in Taipei marking the end of World War II in Europe, emphasizing in his speech: “Using force to invade another country is an unjust act and will ultimately fail.” In just a few words, he captured the core values of the postwar international order and reminded us again: History is not just for reflection, but serves as a warning for the present. From a broad historical perspective, his statement carries weight. For centuries, international relations operated under the law of the jungle — where the strong dominated and the weak were constrained. That
On the eve of the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) made a statement that provoked unprecedented repudiations among the European diplomats in Taipei. Chu said during a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting that what President William Lai (賴清德) has been doing to the opposition is equivalent to what Adolf Hitler did in Nazi Germany, referencing ongoing investigations into the KMT’s alleged forgery of signatures used in recall petitions against Democratic Progressive Party legislators. In response, the German Institute Taipei posted a statement to express its “deep disappointment and concern”
RSS