The Transitional Justice Commission yesterday published the results of its investigation of former commission deputy chairman Chang Tien-chin’s (張天欽) alleged plan to target a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate.
After Chang’s alleged plan came to light last week, the commission has held two meetings with three legal and transitional justice experts and entrusted its ethics officials with conducting interviews and examining documents to ascertain what happened, commission member Yang Tsui (楊翠) told a news conference in Taipei.
“We have established that the two meetings held by Chang on Aug. 24 and Aug. 27 were unofficial and called provisionally. There were no prepared agendas, nor were there any minutes,” she said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
The commission concluded that remarks made by Chang and some of the participants at the Aug. 24 meeting were inappropriate, Yang said, adding that they are unfit to carry out transitional justice, as their ideals, attitudes and motives did not align with those of the commission.
The investigation was not easy, as commission associate researcher Wu Pei-jung (吳佩蓉) had deleted a recording of the Aug. 24 meeting that she leaked to the media, Yang said.
Commission Chairman Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) has approved the resignations of five of the six meeting participants, including Chang’s, Yang said.
Only commission researcher Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元) has not resigned, because he did not make any improper comments at the meeting, she added.
The Chinese-language Mirror Media magazine on Wednesday last week published a partial recording of the Aug. 24 meeting, in which Chang discussed a plan to target KMT New Taipei City mayoral candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜) through a lustration law.
“It will be a pity if we do not manipulate [public opinion] against Hou,” Chang allegedly said in the meeting, referring to Hou as the “most despicable case in transitional justice.”
Hou headed the Taipei Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division in its failed attempt to arrest democracy advocate Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) at the office of his Freedom Era Weekly magazine in 1989. Deng refused arrest and immolated himself in the office.
“We are here to promise the public that the commission has never let one person’s will dominate our actions, and we will not degenerate into an eastern depot like some have accused us of being and never will,” Yang said, making an apparent reference to a Ming Dynasty secret police and spy agency that was responsible for suppressing political dissidents.
The commission would also not let the controversy stop it from holding perpetrators of past atrocities accountable, she added.
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