A failure to sufficiently implement transitional justice measures could threaten democracy, the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee said yesterday.
Committee vice chairman Sun Pin (孫斌) made the statement during a forum on democracy hosted by the legal reform group Taiwan Forever Association in Taipei.
“Taiwan’s staggered implementation of efforts to democratize has meant that transitional justice work that should have been carried out from the beginning has been delayed 30 years,” Sun said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Injustices of the past could reoccur if transitional justice is not well implemented, he said.
While no universal definition of “transitional justice” exists, most academics define it as measures taken by a country to address the aftermath of human rights abuses, he said.
“An important part of that process is to affirm the human dignity of the victims of past political persecution, and to use appropriate means to ensure there are no future victims,” he said.
“Looking at the operation of Taiwan’s democratic systems, you can see how transitional justice has not been implemented well enough,” he said.
The use of terms such as “green terror” and “democratic autocracy” shows a lack of understanding of the White Terror era, and are used to attack the normal administrative measures of a sound democratic government and its transitional justice efforts, he said.
“The result is that the meaning behind those original terms, such as ‘White Terror,’ become muddled, and those guilty of injustices escape responsibility,” he said.
“The public will grow distrustful of all government, and believe that all parties are equally incorrigible,” he added.
By manipulating the public’s trust in the government, anti-democratic forces try to present themselves as a better alternative, which could easily lead to a regression of democracy, he said.
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office today requested that a court detain three individuals, including Keelung Department of Civil Affairs Director Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), in connection with an investigation into forged signatures used in recall campaigns. Chang is suspected of accessing a household registration system to assist with recall campaigns targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Chang (張之豪), prosecutors said. Prosecutors yesterday directed investigators to search six locations, including the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Keelung office and the residences of several recall campaign leaders. The recall campaign leaders, including Chi Wen-chuan (紀文荃), Yu Cheng-i (游正義) and Hsu Shao-yeh
COVID-19 infections have climbed for three consecutive weeks and are likely to reach another peak between next month and June, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. Weekly hospital visits for the disease increased by 19 percent from the previous week, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said. From Tuesday last week to yesterday, 21 cases of severe COVID-19 and seven deaths were confirmed, and from Sept. 1 last year to yesterday, there were 600 cases and 129 deaths, he said. From Oct. 1 last year to yesterday, 95.9 percent of the severe cases and 96.7 percent of the deaths
RSS