The Taipei High Administrative Court should be held responsible if the National Women’s League (NWL) disposes of its assets, the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee said yesterday in response to the court’s decision on Tuesday to unfreeze the league’s assets.
The committee in February declared the league to be an affiliate of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and froze its assets totaling about NT$38.5 billion (US$1.25 billion).
During the KMT authoritarian period, the league used the party-state system to ask the public for “military donations” and distributed the money through the KMT’s social work committee, the committee said, adding that there is clear evidence of its affiliation.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Judges Chen Chin-wei (陳金圍), Pi Nai-chun (畢乃俊) and Chen Hsin-hung (陳心弘) completely disregarded the evidence and the league can now use the funds as it pleases, it said.
The league applied to unfreeze its assets because it was dissatisfied with the committee’s decision to file an administrative suit, sources said.
The decision greatly damages fair competition among political parties and the nation’s transitional justice project, makes the sorting and retrieval of ill-gotten party assets more complicated and harms the public interest, the committee said.
The court in its press release disregarded the fact that transitional justice projects must always race against time and said that lifting the penalty would merely postpone the realization of transitional justice, the committee said.
The court is ignorant of the damage that would be done to the public interest and is essentially telling Taiwanese that there is no need to pursue transitional justice, it said.
Central Investment Co (中央投資公司) and Hsinyutai Co (欣裕台) had also applied to end the administrative penalties placed against them, but the Supreme Administrative Court rejected their requests, the committee added.
Tuesday’s ruling contradicts the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling, it said.
The Taipei High Administrative Court only urged the league to consider the potential legal risks it might face and to handle its assets in a reasonable manner, it said.
The judges did not put any measure in place to prevent the league from using this opportunity to dispose of its assets, it added.
The league had illegally used about NT$2.4 million of its assets after it had already been declared a KMT affiliate, for which it was later fined, the committee said.
If the league uses large amounts of its assets and in doing so harms the public interest, the Taipei High Administrative Court should be held responsible, it added.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary