No excuse for court delay
In February 2018, the Executive Yuan’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee designated the National Women’s League of the Republic of China as a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) organization.
The league retaliated by filing an administrative lawsuit against the Executive Yuan. This case was then brought to the Supreme Court for resolution. In August 2020, the justices announced that the party assets regulations were constitutional.
The recovery of ill-gotten party assets is an important step in achieving a democratic and constitutional order in the nation.
However, the Taipei High Administrative Court dropped the ball and stalled the proceedings in the “preparatory phase” without reconvening a court session.
The Executive Yuan’s litigation over the league’s nationalization of NT$38.7 billion (US$1.89 billion) in military and labor donations to the league has likewise stalled.
The Taipei High Administrative Court’s ruling was halted due to a constitutional interpretation. The judge proceeded with the on-schedule trying of the case through a hearing plan and there was no dragging out of the case.
A high-profile, significant case has been pushed down the docket for six years now, remaining unresolved, even though the judge’s interpretation was released four years ago.
It is exasperating that no headway has been made. Taipei High Administrative Court officials have said that even the court’s personnel do not wish to see the stalling, much less the public, who have high expectations of legal system reform.
Will this case end up expiring due to exceeding a statute of limitations? Is there a proper reason for the continuous delay? Should we blame the presiding judge for their idleness or for intentionally pushing down on the brake pedal? What exactly are the contents of this judge’s so-called “hearing plan?”
Since the case has been sitting in the public trial phase, there is no suitable excuse through a principle of closed deliberations that could be used to explain the delay away.
The Taipei High Administrative Court must give a detailed explanation to the public so the goals of implementing transitional justice and improving public confidence in the judiciary do not become slogans that deceive the public into thinking it could achieve justice.
Tien Fong-wen
New Taipei City
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past