The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus is seeking to make a draft act on transitional justice into law this legislative session, despite objections from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP).
The DPP caucus’ draft legislation for promoting transitional justice passed the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee in June last year, and the caucus will schedule a further review of the draft act in a plenary session on Friday, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said yesterday.
The DPP is to make the scheduling tomorrow during a cross-caucus negotiation called by Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全).
The New Power Party (NPP) has proposed to rename the draft legislation as “the act on implementing transitional justice,” NPP caucus whip Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said.
As 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) has been passed, provisions dealing with party assets would be removed from the draft act, which should focus on judicial redress, legal remedy and the collection of political archives, Hsu said.
The draft legislation would also deal with the misappropriation or illegal occupation of government properties, such as the transfer of properties owned by Taipei Jen Chi Hospital, a charity formerly run by the Japanese colonial government.
The government-run medical facility, along with public properties registered in its name, was privatized after Japan renounced its claim to Taiwan after World War II.
“In cases where government properties are misappropriated, owners of those properties will be asked to return them to the state in the spirit of transitional justice,” Hsu said.
Meanwhile, (KMT) caucus whip Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) said there is no immediate need to pass the draft legislation and the public perception of the legislation is generally negative, as it promotes conflict.
“This is not the best time. The KMT is against an act that seeks to accomplish something by hurting others,” he said.
The motive behind the draft act was to deal with ill-gotten party assets and the passage of the party assets law has made the draft meaningless, Sufin said.
The KMT caucus fully supports the idea of making political archives available to the public, but the opening of archives should not be limited to archives of a specific era to ensure justice, he said.
Aboriginal transitional justice issues would also be handled during discussions of the draft act, he said.
PFP Legislator Chen Yi-chieh (陳怡潔) said the public has a negative view of the DPP due to its repeated attempts to push for politically motivated bills, adding that the draft legislation does not include Aboriginal issues and is therefore in conflict with the concept of transitional justice.
Su arranged the cross-caucus negotiation upon the NPP’s request, but the PFP caucus said it is against the negotiations if it would be just a formality instead of involving a substantial discussion, Chen said.
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