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MOFA chief sued over citizenship inquiry results

“He [Ou] said there were two legislators [whose nationality status might be problematic], but so far [the ministry] was unable to determine whether they possessed dual citizenship.” — Wang Jin-ping, legislative speaker

Three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators filed a lawsuit against Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) yesterday, accusing him of concealing public documents by failing to disclose information on lawmakers who might hold US citizenship.

Ou, however, said he had spoken with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) shortly after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received a response from the US on Monday and Wang had told him not divulge the information because the response was not as straight forward as expected.

It is against the law for ranking public servants to possess either foreign residency or citizenship.

In September, the ministry asked the US for help in determining if any lawmakers held permanent residency or citizenship after a Next Magazine report accused Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) of being a US citizen.

Lee said her US citizenship was automatically revoked when she was sworn in as a Taipei City councilor in 1994.

After meeting with Wang, it was agreed that the ministry would not make the US response public until the US could give a clearer answer, Ou said. He said the ministry had already asked the US for clarification.

Wang confirmed yesterday that the initial information from the US showed that two lawmakers might have dual citizenship.

“He [Ou] said there were two legislators [whose nationality status might be problematic], but so far [the ministry] was unable to determine whether they possessed dual citizenship,” the speaker said, declining to reveal the identity of the legislators.

Wang said Ou had given him the response from the US, but he did not read the document because it was marked confidential.

“One of them reported having studied in the US, but not applying for PR [permanent residency]. It was impossible for the legislator to become a US citizen without having had PR first, so the legislator insisted that the result was absurd,” Wang said.

He said the legislature can only deal with the nationality status of current lawmakers, while former legislators should be dealt with by the judiciary.

He did not elaborate, but former Taiwan Solidarity Union lawmaker George Liu (劉寬平) said in June that he had filed an application to relinquish his US citizenship at the end of last year, but that the process was not yet complete.
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