A court in Taipei on Thursday dismissed an administrative lawsuit by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to block the transfer of 33 documents related to the 228 Incident to national archives.
Following two years of deliberations, the Taipei High Administrative Court found that the request by the Transitional Justice Commission to transfer the documents was legally valid, and that the KMT had failed to provide adequate grounds for issuing an injunction.
The court also dismissed a KMT claim seeking NT$31 million (US$1.07 million) in compensation from the commission in return for the documents, which the party made on the grounds that the request constituted a “deprivation of property rights.”
The ruling can be appealed.
The commission was established in 2018 by the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例) to increase access to political archives, remove authoritarian symbols and redress judicial injustices from Taiwan’s 1945-1992 period under authoritarian rule.
One of its major areas of inquiry is the 228 Incident, an uprising in 1947 against the then-KMT regime and the resulting crackdown that left thousands dead and led to nearly four decades of martial law.
Under the law, political parties or organizations that possess records relating to that period are required to report them to the commission, which can order that relevant documents be transferred to the National Archives Administration.
In compliance with the law, the KMT reported 43,095 archival documents to the commission in 2018, with the commission on May 3, 2019, making an initial request for 33 of the documents.
The documents date from the years 1946 to 1952, and relate to the government’s response to the 228 Incident, the imposition of martial law and the “period of mobilization for the suppression of Communist rebellion,” and various political leaders and dissidents from that era, the commission said.
The court said in its ruling that the KMT had transferred 31 of the documents to the archives over the course of the trial, meaning that the decision only requires it to turn over the final two documents.
The commission, which has had its original two-year mandate extended twice with approval from the premier, is scheduled to disband on May 30, after releasing a final report on its work.
The Cabinet in February approved a plan to transfer some of the commission’s duties and tasks to other government agencies, while creating a smaller “transitional justice board” to review and coordinate how those activities are carried out.
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