The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday urged Taiwanese who have concerns about the KMT’s assets to take legal action against the party, criticizing a draft bill on illicit party assets that cleared its first reading in the legislature on Monday for targeting only the KMT and violating the universal guiding principle of law.
The KMT held a news conference in Taipei to urge President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) government to prioritize the nation’s economy and public livelihood over agendas designed to carry out political purges and aggravate internal frictions.
“The draft bill for managing illegal party assets is targeting certain parties and runs against the universal guiding principle in law. Regulations governing party assets should have been placed under the draft political party act [政黨法] and made to cover all political parties,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee director Chow Chi-wai (周志偉) said.
Chow said former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) already spent eight years looking into the KMT’s assets, with Control Yuan member Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) releasing an investigation report on the issue in 2014.
The KMT’s so-called controversial assets have been dealt with and all of the party’s assets are legal, Chow said, calling on anyone who still has doubts about the matter to take legal action.
“The party is willing to shoulder all the costs of the lawsuit should the court rule in favor of the plaintiff,” Chow said.
Chow was referring to a draft bill on illicit party assets passed at a joint session of the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration, the Finance Committee and the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee on Monday.
If passed in the general assembly, the bill would see the establishment of a special committee under the Executive Yuan to investigate assets held by the KMT before the end of the Martial Law era, including the assets of any organization over which the party exercised substantial control.
KMT Administration and Management Committee director Chiu Da-chan (邱大展) said that as Taiwan is a nation governed by the rule of law, such issues should be handled using regular legal approaches rather than through the enactment of a specific law authorizing the DPP-led Executive Yuan to assign anyone to examine the assets of its rival party.
“We welcome everyone who has concerns about our party assets to call a hotline at (02) 2173-1234,” Chiu said.
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