The Taipei High Administrative Court yesterday rejected the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) request to access NT$16.9 million (US$594,610) in frozen assets to pay the 2014 recipients of its Sun Yat-sen Scholarship.
The scholarship scheme was created by the KMT in 1960 to provide financial aid to KMT members who passed an internal assessment to study abroad in pursuit of a master’s degree.
Past recipients include former president and former KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), and KMT Chairman and Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣).
After the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee in September 2016 ordered a freeze on KMT assets, the party filed a request seeking access to NT$100 million owed to the party by the Chang Yung-fa Foundation, as well as Central Investment (中央投資) equities, to pay the 2014 scholarship’s nine recipients a total of NT$16.9 million.
The committee denied the request.
In a previous court appearance, an attorney for the KMT said that the request should be approved because the scholarship concerned public welfare, but a committee-appointed attorney said that because the recipients would be fulfilling the obligations of the party, it had nothing to do with public welfare.
The KMT’s attorney on Jan. 7 said that the contracts for studying abroad had been signed prior to the implementation of the Act Governing the Settlement 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).
The committee’s decision to deny the KMT the funds has had a significant effect on the careers of the scholarship’s recipients, the KMT said.
The committee’s attorney said that according to Article 11 of the scholarship contract, recipients must fulfill the obligations of the party, as well as support activities held by the party.
The contract states that if a recipient leaves the party or is expelled from the party after the completion of their study abroad, they must repay the scholarship, showing that it has nothing to do with public welfare, the committee’s attorney said.
The KMT sued for access to the funds, but the court rejected the request. The KMT can still appeal the decision.
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