Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators have proposed retroactive amendments to a bill on ill-gotten party assets.
The proposed amendments to 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) would add provisions on party-affiliated organizations.
The amendments were proposed by KMT Legislator Yu Hao (游顥) and 36 other legislators who said that administrative agencies “seriously infringed upon the rights and interests of social welfare organizations.”
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“In addition to hindering the normal operation of these organizations, the act also damages social harmony and clearly deviates from its original legislative purpose,” the legislators said. “We’ve drafted these amendments in order to promote the healthy development of democracy and protect the public’s basic constitutional rights.”
The proposed amendments add a provision stating that “those that have been affiliated with the state are not subject to the limitations defined in the act.”
The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee in 2018 determined the China Youth Corps to be a KMT-affiliated organization, and in 2022 said 61 properties and more than NT$1.39 billion in the organization’s name were improperly acquired and should be transferred to state ownership.
China Youth Corps fought the ruling in court, and in January last year, the Supreme Administrative Court made a final ruling in the case against the organization.
Rulings like those against the China Youth Corps showed the judiciary was in agreement with the committee about the ill-gotten nature of properties owned by KMT-affiliated organizations, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus secretary-general Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said yesterday.
“This is not just a piece of legislation, it’s a judicial process. The KMT thinks that having one more legislator seat puts it above the law, and that it can arbitrarily redact all the laws that have already been passed,” she said.
“Whether the KMT’s property is legitimate or not is unilaterally decided by the DPP,” the KMT Central Standing Committee said yesterday. “Nowhere else in the world is there a ruling party that legislates the liquidation of all properties of other political parties in the name of false transitional justice. This is a shame for Taiwan’s democracy.”
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