The office of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that Chen was serious about asking US President Barack Obama to testify in court to clarify Taiwan’s status and that the suit had nothing to do with the former president being found guilty of corruption.
The office issued a statement saying that Chen supported a lawsuit that Roger Lin (林志昇), the founder of the Formosa Nation Legal Strategy Association, intends to file in the US because the former president hoped the case would help clarify Taiwan’s international status.
Chen also hopes the trial would reflect his position that the people of Taiwan should jettison the constitutional system of the Republic of China and make concerted efforts to build a new republic and write a new constitution, the statement said.
Chen’s office emphasized that the former president’s backing for Lin’s lawsuit had nothing to do with the trial in which he and his wife were handed life sentences for corruption last week.
Lin said he planned to file the suit at the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington today and that Chen was willing to testify in his capacity as the “former leader of the Republic of China (ROC) government in exile.”
Chen had also signed an affidavit in support of a writ of certiorari, Lin said.
A writ of certiorari is issued by a higher court to request that a lower court provide records from a given case for review.
In the affidavit, Chen said the US has been the “principal occupying power” of Taiwan and that he would like to clarify in court the relationship between “the people of Taiwan (not the ‘exiled Chinese’ on Taiwan) and the United States, and the rights of the native Taiwanese people to hold some form of US-issued travel documents.”
Some have called Chen’s move a “deathbed struggle,” saying that his true purpose was to see Washington intervene in his legal battle so that a retrial could be held.
Lin petitioned a Washington district court in October 2006 to rule on the nationality of the people in Taiwan. The court dismissed the case, saying it lacked jurisdiction over political matters.
On appeal, Lin argued that the US was Taiwan’s “principal occupying power,” effectively giving the US temporary de jure sovereignty. When permanent sovereignty is ultimately decided, Lin said, the de jure sovereignty of the US would cease.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington upheld the district court’s ruling that deciding sovereignty was a political task rather than a judicial question. As the executive branch of the US government has remained silent on this issue, the court said, it could not intrude on its decision.
Lin appealed to the US Supreme Court on July 8 and the court is scheduled to hold a hearing on whether to accept the appeal on Tuesday next week.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS