The office of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that Chen was serious about asking US President Barack Obama to testify in court to clarify Taiwan’s status and that the suit had nothing to do with the former president being found guilty of corruption.
The office issued a statement saying that Chen supported a lawsuit that Roger Lin (林志昇), the founder of the Formosa Nation Legal Strategy Association, intends to file in the US because the former president hoped the case would help clarify Taiwan’s international status.
Chen also hopes the trial would reflect his position that the people of Taiwan should jettison the constitutional system of the Republic of China and make concerted efforts to build a new republic and write a new constitution, the statement said.
Chen’s office emphasized that the former president’s backing for Lin’s lawsuit had nothing to do with the trial in which he and his wife were handed life sentences for corruption last week.
Lin said he planned to file the suit at the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington today and that Chen was willing to testify in his capacity as the “former leader of the Republic of China (ROC) government in exile.”
Chen had also signed an affidavit in support of a writ of certiorari, Lin said.
A writ of certiorari is issued by a higher court to request that a lower court provide records from a given case for review.
In the affidavit, Chen said the US has been the “principal occupying power” of Taiwan and that he would like to clarify in court the relationship between “the people of Taiwan (not the ‘exiled Chinese’ on Taiwan) and the United States, and the rights of the native Taiwanese people to hold some form of US-issued travel documents.”
Some have called Chen’s move a “deathbed struggle,” saying that his true purpose was to see Washington intervene in his legal battle so that a retrial could be held.
Lin petitioned a Washington district court in October 2006 to rule on the nationality of the people in Taiwan. The court dismissed the case, saying it lacked jurisdiction over political matters.
On appeal, Lin argued that the US was Taiwan’s “principal occupying power,” effectively giving the US temporary de jure sovereignty. When permanent sovereignty is ultimately decided, Lin said, the de jure sovereignty of the US would cease.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington upheld the district court’s ruling that deciding sovereignty was a political task rather than a judicial question. As the executive branch of the US government has remained silent on this issue, the court said, it could not intrude on its decision.
Lin appealed to the US Supreme Court on July 8 and the court is scheduled to hold a hearing on whether to accept the appeal on Tuesday next week.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS