The Taipei High Administrative Court yesterday ruled against the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) appeals to declare the Transitional Justice Commission’s 2019 and 2020 motions to transfer party documents to the state as illegal.
The ruling can be appealed.
In 2019, the commission, after reviewing 4,286 “Files Signed and Approved by the Director-General (總裁批簽)” — referring to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) — had designated the files as “political files” and ordered them to be transferred to the state. The KMT filed an appeal against the transfer.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
In 2020, the commission assigned the same designation to 80 “director-general files” that it said the KMT had not reported to the commission, prompting the KMT to file a second appeal.
The ruling stated that Chiang, acting in his capacity as director-general of the ruling party and head of the nation at the time, was inseparable from the government, and was also responsible for national mobilization for suppression of the communist rebellion and the subsequent Martial Law era.
Chiang’s directives are critical pieces of historical data that can shed more light on the government’s decisions during that era, the court said.
The commission’s decision to appropriate the documents and make them state-owned contravenes no law, and the KMT’s appeals have no legal basis, the ruling said.
The commission yesterday lauded the ruling as a significant milestone, highlighting the importance of the government owning such files.
The files are proof that the KMT superseded the state during the Martial Law era and are crucial to understanding the autocratic government during that era, it said.
Only 23 of the 80 additional files have been turned over, it said.
Under Article 18 of the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例), the commission can fine the KMT for every request unheeded, it said.
The commission also alleged that the KMT had breached Article 16 of the act by sitting on 30,000 more files from the Overseas Vocation Commission, the Culture Commission, the Social Affairs Commission and the Mainland Affairs Commission, and not turning them over to the commission.
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