The High Administrative Court yesterday ruled against the Ministry of National Defense in its lawsuit against the family of Justin Lin (
The defense ministry took legal action against Lin's family last year for the return of NT$475,000 in compensation after Lin was listed as dead by the military after he swam to China from Kinmen in 1979 in order to defect.
However, Lin's family argued the ministry had known that Lin swam to China, but instead of making the information public, the military covered up the truth in order to stabilize military morale.
Lin's family insisted the military had full knowledge of Lin's whereabouts since his disappearance about two decades ago.
The court's ruling yesterday stated that "the function of the administrative court is to provide the public with a channel to redress their losses instead of issuing any punishment on behalf of the administrative agencies. The administrative court is not in the position to execute business on behalf of the administrative agencies."
The ruling quashed the ministry's suit on the grounds that the military should have taken legal action a long time ago instead of waiting until now to resort to the administrative litigation process for compensation.
The defense ministry yesterday said it would appeal the case to the Supreme Administrative Court.
Lin's defection to China shocked the nation last year and prompted the defense ministry to openly denounce Lin's behavior as a disgrace to the military.
On May 16, 1979, Lin disappeared from his unit on the frontline island of Kinmen. Lin was then the leader of a company guarding one of the most important positions on the island, which lies just off the coast of China.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods