The Transitional Justice Commission yesterday said it is recommending legal amendments that would hold perpetrators of White Terror offences accountable for their actions.
The amendments being mulled are to include the revocation of government stipends and commendations, and that a draft would be completed by May next year, the commission told a news conference in Taipei.
The commission is to probe into declassified national security archives to identify perpetrators, especially the then-heads of state apparatuses who can be charged or disciplined for crimes, commission spokeswoman Chen Yu-fan (陳雨凡) said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
This means those accused of committing crimes would face justice in court, while the internal affairs units of the civil service would deal with public servants whose alleged misdeeds did not meet the standards of a crime, she said.
Mechanisms would be put in place to encourage reconciliation by allowing perpetrators to tell the truth in exchange for leniency or immunity, Chen said.
Although many perpetrators would by now be deceased, the responsibility to bring the past into light still exists, she added.
The commission’s acting minister, Yeh Hung-ling (葉虹靈), said the commission’s research is focused on the military tribunal system and the political framework of the party-state system.
The single-party state system enabled the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to politicize the bureaucratic system, Yeh said.
The KMT controlled the administration of the country from the national government down to villages, the judicial branch, the education system and the foreign affairs establishment; the latter gave it the ability to affect people living outside the country’s borders, she said.
However, the commission does not have a clear idea of the operational system of domestic surveillance under the authoritarian regime, she said.
National security agencies remain reluctant to disclose the identities of their informants, and the commission is continuing to negotiate with them, she added.
The amendments being drafted would define the perimeters of responsibility for perpetrators, select and empower the agencies in charge of investigations, and establish systems of remedy and other technical guidelines, Yeh said.
The commission has granted 100 of 163 applicants access to the White Terror-era national security archives, it said, adding that requests are granted in all cases in which relevant files can be located.
Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) and Deng Chu-mei (鄭竹梅) — the daughter of Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), who self-immolated in 1989 in defense of “100 percent freedom of expression” — were among those who filed for archival access.
The commission released the information in the wake of a media report last week that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書) was an informant for the KMT in his student days.
Huang confirmed the report and said he would leave the party and not seek re-election.
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