On Feb. 17, the Transitional Justice Commission released its report on the murders of the mother and twin daughters of democracy advocate Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) on Feb. 28, 1980.
The most important finding is that the commission has not ruled out the authoritarian government’s involvement in the murders. Forty years after the killings, evidence has disappeared — either purposefully or unintentionally destroyed. Surprisingly, some documents remain classified, which only underscores the need to review current laws.
An amendment to Article 80 of the Criminal Code last year scrapped the statute of limitations for offenses that result in death. However, Article 8-2 of the Enforcement Act of the Criminal Code (中華民國刑法施行法) stipulates that if “the period of limitation of prosecution of punishment was in progress but not completed before [the amendment takes effect], the post-amended provision shall apply.”
In other words, the amendment applies to cases that have not yet passed the period of limitation, but not cases that have already done so.
In the Lin family murder case, the period of limitation — 30 years — has passed. Even if the murderer is found and is still alive, they cannot be held criminally liable, because the period of limitation has passed.
Due to the impossibility of pursuing criminal liability, transitional justice must now restore the truth as far as possible for later generations to learn from.
However, laws and regulations protecting classified information further aggravate the situation.
Since August 2018, the commission has asked the National Security Bureau for files on 21 cases, including the Lin family murders, the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident and the 1981 death of Carnegie Mellon University associate professor Chen Wen-chen (陳文成).
The commission only gained access to the files on one case, the Lin family murders, and were denied access to the others because — in accordance with Article 12 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法) — “any national security information involving intelligence activities, sources or access shall remain classified permanently.”
If declassifying the files would expose the national security intelligence network, does that mean that Taiwan’s intelligence agencies have made no technical progress or advances in how they gather intelligence?
It is also impossible to imagine what kind of national security information could be listed as “permanently classified.”
The Legislative Yuan last year enacted the Political Archives Act (政治檔案條例) specifically to clear obstacles created by the Classified National Security Information Protection Act.
Article 5 of the new law stipulates that “archives that have been classified for more than 30 years without any legal basis shall be declassified.”
This helps prevent illegal conduct from being covered up by classifying it.
Bewilderingly, the act also gives an exception for political archives when “there is a likelihood that their disclosure would seriously affect national security or foreign relations,” allowing them to remain classified for 50 years.
This vague and ambiguous wording means that key evidence in the Lin family murders is sealed up for another 10 years. Exceptions of this kind are not much different from the permanent classification stipulated in the Classified National Security Information Protection Act.
These exceptions expose the absurdity of the regulations protecting classified information, and legislators should hurry to re-evaluate and abolish them.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate law professor at Aletheia University.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the
Delegation-level visits between the two countries have become an integral part of transformed relations between India and the US. Therefore, the visit by a bipartisan group of seven US lawmakers, led by US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul to India from June 16 to Thursday last week would have largely gone unnoticed in India and abroad. However, the US delegation’s four-day visit to India assumed huge importance this time, because of the meeting between the US lawmakers and the Dalai Lama. This in turn brings us to the focal question: How and to what extent