The High Court on Friday ruled in favor of the Taipei City Government in a case involving the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) occupation of a 77-ping (254.55m2) plot of land in the city’s Nangang District (南港), which the party has been using as an office to receive district residents’ requests.
The ruling was the first among a series of pending legal cases targeting questionable assets owned by political parties since the passing of the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例) last month.
The court said in its ruling that the KMT should return the city-owned land.
The ruling was the result of a lawsuit filed by the city government in 2014.
The city had unsuccessfully tried to reclaim the land through legal channels during the terms of former Taipei mayors Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).
Nangang District Administrator Wang Hsien-li (王先黎) said he will ask the KMT to vacate the building and return the space to the city government, adding that if it refuses to comply, the city will ask the court to enforce the ruling.
Taipei City Government spokesman Sidney Lin (林鶴明) said the city will consider asking the KMT to pay the rent it accrued over the years to protect the interests of Taipei residents.
Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) of the Neihu-Nangang (南港-內湖) constituency said that the KMT’s occupation of city-owned land was just “the tip of the iceberg,” adding that the party has committed a number of offenses that linked the national treasury and local government coffers to its own accounts.
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