Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus whip Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) said the party would sue Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) for negligence today over the renaming of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.
The hall was officially renamed the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall (
Tseng said given that the legislature had not approved the Executive Yuan's request to suspend the law regulating the management of the monument, the name change was illegal.
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
The Cabinet had requested the legislature to abolish the Organic Law of the CKS Memorial Hall Management (
According to the regulations, Cabinet administrative orders are sent to the legislature for reference, rather than approval.
The administrative regulations contradict the organic statute, Tseng said, adding that the Law Governing Legislators' Exercise of Power (
The Ministry of Education is the government organization in charge of the hall.
KMT Legislator Hsu Shao-ping (
"The government totally disregarded procedural justice before the legislature had a chance to review the law and the administrative order," she said.
When approached by the press for comment yesterday, Tu refused to respond to opposition lawmakers' demands, saying that everything had been handled legally.
The Taipei City Government Department of Cultural Affairs said yesterday it had officially requested that the CKS Memorial Hall Management Office remove the banners covering the name signs on the hall, citing the Cultural Heritage Protection Law (文化資產保護法).
When asked to comment on Saturday's ceremony, department director Lee Yong-ping (李永萍) told the press that the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall did not exist because legislation approving the name change was incomplete.
Putting up banners to "publicize something that does not exist" may be illegal, she said, adding that the management office may face a fine of between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000 under the Cultural Heritage Protection Law.
She was referring to Saturday's unveiling ceremony, during which two huge banners bearing wild lilies as the symbol of the democracy hall were used to cover two sides of the hall building.
Lee added that the management office also closed entrances to the building, where a gigantic statue of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (
In a bid to prevent the CKS Hall from being altered, in March the Taipei City Government classified the 27-year-old memorial hall and its surrounding walls as a temporary historical site.
The Cultural Heritage Protection Law stipulates that a temporary historical site cannot be altered or damaged in any way.
Lee said the city government had been inadvertently caught up in the controversy surrounding the name change, adding that its handling of matters relating to the hall had been consistent.
Any attempt to remove Chiang's statue from the hall would also be illegal because the committee entrusted by the department to review the cultural value of the hall considers the statue part of the building's structure, she added.
At a separate setting yesterday, President Chen Shui-bian (
"As for the disposal of the statue, we can think about that. I heard that the doors of the hall can be locked up," Chen said.
Chen accuses Chiang and this KMT regime of serious violations of human rights and of oppressing democracy advocates during their five-decade-long strongarm rule of Taiwan -- which ended when Chen was elected president in 2000.
Public Construction Commission Chairman Wu Tze-cheng (
"We will decide whether to demolish the outer walls, remove the statue of Chiang Kai-shek and remove the name board in the main gateway by the end of this year," he said.
Dozens of police guarded the new name plate at the memorial hall yesterday as local and foreign tourists snapped pictures in light rain.
A veteran soldier from China clashed with police after he was caught spitting at the hall's new name plate.
At a forum hosted by the Ketagalan Institute in Taipei yesterday, DPP Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that changing the name of the hall was a matter of right or wrong and a sign that the country had fully adopted democratization.
"If we want to walk down the road of democracy, we must face pain and accept the changes that come with it," he said.
Additional reporting by Ko Shu-ling and DPA
Also see story:
Why all the fuss about CKS Hall?
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
MASSIVE LOSS: If the next recall votes also fail, it would signal that the administration of President William Lai would continue to face strong resistance within the legislature The results of recall votes yesterday dealt a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to overturn the opposition-controlled legislature, as all 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers survived the recall bids. Backed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) DPP, civic groups led the recall drive, seeking to remove 31 out of 39 KMT lawmakers from the 113-seat legislature, in which the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together hold a majority with 62 seats, while the DPP holds 51 seats. The scale of the recall elections was unprecedented, with another seven KMT lawmakers facing similar votes on Aug. 23. For a
All 24 lawmakers of the main opposition Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) on Saturday survived historical nationwide recall elections, ensuring that the KMT along with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers will maintain opposition control of the legislature. Recall votes against all 24 KMT lawmakers as well as Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) and KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) failed to pass, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) figures. In only six of the 24 recall votes did the ballots cast in favor of the recall even meet the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters needed for the recall to pass,
LETTER, FLAG FLAP: A Chinese man and woman reportedly tried to snatch a letter meant for Taiwanese winners, while China’s team took offense at a Taiwanese flag President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday condemned an alleged attempt by two Chinese to snatch a letter of congratulations handed to Taiwan’s taekwondo team after they won silver at the Summer World University Games in Germany on Wednesday. A Chinese man and woman reportedly tried to snatch a congratulatory letter to athletes Hung Jiun-yi (洪俊義), Jung Jiun-jie (鍾俊傑) and Huang Cho-cheng (黃卓乘) from the Ministry of Education, and then argued with reporters. “Why are you taking our things?” reporters asked the pair. “Does that say ‘Chinese Taipei’?” the two Chinese reportedly asked. Following the incident, Sports Administration Director-General Cheng Shih-chung (鄭世忠) wrote on Threads about
RSS