The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus yesterday issued a notice in a bid to eliminate the budget for the Transitional Justice Commission at a review tomorrow.
“The alleged breach of neutrality seen in the incident involving [former commission deputy chairman] Chang Tien-chin (張天欽) exposed the commission’s positioning as an ‘Eastern Depot,’” the notice said, referring to a Ming Dynasty-era secret police and spy agency.
After the resignation of former commission chairman Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) in October, the body unilaterally appointed commission spokeswoman Yang Tsui (楊翠) as acting chairperson, it said.
The move amounted to abolishing the Legislative Yuan’s power to approve political appointments, and the appointment of Yang, who has a “distinct” political leaning, portended the inauguration of a “political hatchet woman,” it added.
The commission is a “fig leaf” for the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) persecution of the KMT and has no reason to exist, it said.
According to a leaked audio recording, Chang said at an informal meeting with five commission staff members in August that the commission was drawing up a lustration law and that he planned to use it against then-KMT New Taipei City mayoral candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜), whom he allegedly called the “most egregious transitional justice case.”
KMT Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲), cochair of the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, said the incident was one of the reasons that the DPP suffered losses in the Nov. 24 local elections.
The Executive Yuan should restart the nomination procedure for a new commission chairperson, while the commission, which has lost the public’s trust, should undergo a systematic reshuffle before it submits a budget request, Lin said.
Lawmakers had appointed Huang as the commission’s head, not Yang, so approving the budget proposal when the commission is under the leadership of Yang could contravene the law, he added.
“Whatever Chang might have said or done is wrong. He has assumed political responsibility and stepped down,” DPP caucus director-general Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said.
Yang was appointed acting chairwoman because she is a commissioner, Lee said, adding that she would stay in the post until the legislature approves a new staffing plan for the commission.
“The elections are over. The KMT should stop trying to have a field day by exploiting this issue,” he said.
“The KMT should know when to quit. There are many people who would not approve of their approach” to boycott the budget review, New Power Party (NPP) caucus convener Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said.
“Should the prisoners of conscience of the White Terror era be left to die with their resentment from wrongful treatment unappeased?” Hsu asked.
The NPP is open to the idea of introducing a lustration law into the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例), and the KMT should lobby for an amendment if it believes that the act needs to be improved, he said.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS