Amid disputes over the legitimacy of former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) application for an overseas trip later this month, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) yesterday said the office has instructed the Ministry of Justice to clarify confusion over the process for individuals who have handled classified security information to apply to leave the country.
At a regular news briefing at the office yesterday, Huang said Ma’s application for an one-day trip to Hong Kong on June 15 is still being “prudently deliberated” in accordance with the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法).
“Since the promulgation of the act in 2003, which applies to the retired president and vice president elected in 2008, it is the first time a former head of state has applied to leave the country within the three-year regulatory period,” Huang said.
“It is also the first time such an application has been filed in less than one month after a former president left office,” Huang added.
Turning to debates over whether the timing Ma submitted the application failed to conform to the law, Huang said past cases showed that different government agencies have their own regulations, with the deadlines for receipt of such applications ranging from 10 to 20 days prior to the planned departure date.
Huang said the office has instructed the Ministry of Justice, which serves as the competent authority of the act, to provide clarification on the application deadline.
Ma, whose term expired on May 20, sent his overseas visit application to the office on Wednesday, before announcing his plan to attend and give a speech at the Society of Publishers in Asia’s Awards for Editorial Excellence ceremony to be held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on June 15.
Ma is required by Article 26 of the act to obtain prior approval for any international travel plans within three years after leaving office from the government body where he used to work.
However, Article 32 of the Enforcement Rules of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法施行細則) stipulates that such an application has to be filed 20 days prior to departure.
In related news, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published an exclusive report yesterday alleging that Ma’s original plan was to visit Singapore, where he had a historical meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in November last year.
Citing a “credible source” who requested anonymity, the report said the Singaporean government turned down Ma’s proposal because its priority is to establish ties with President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration.
Instead, Ma is planning to visit Singapore between August and September, the report added.
Meanwhile, former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesman Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) yesterday urged the former president to talk about things closer to the lives of Hong Kongers, rather than lauding cross-strait peace as he has done for the past eight years.
“The situation in Hong Kong has changed significantly since Ma’s last visit [in 2001], primarily due to the predicaments facing the area’s democracy and public livelihood caused by the ‘one country, two systems’ framework, as well as the coercion and contradictions brought about by Xi’s authoritarian rule,” Yang said.
Many media works nominated by the awards ceremony in Hong Kong also talked about these issues, Yang said, calling on Ma to focus his speech on issues such as freedom of the press, universal suffrage, pro-localization movements and China’s democratization.
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