Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wellington Koo (顧立雄) yesterday confirmed that he has agreed to head the Executive Yuan’s commission to handle the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) ill-gotten assets.
The commission is to be set up under 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), which was passed by the legislature late last month in a vote that was split along party lines.
According to the act, the premier is to appoint 11 to 13 members of the commission, who will be charged with investigating, retroactively confiscating and returning or restoring to rightful owners all assets that were improperly obtained by the KMT and affiliated organizations since Aug. 15, 1945 — when Japan officially announced its surrender to the Allies, bringing World War II to an end.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Koo said he had not anticipated the appointment and had planned to push for several judicial, narcotics and prison reform bills in the legislature, but President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Premier Lin Chuan (林全) had expressed their wishes for him to accept it.
“I can only tell you at this time that they said I was the right man for the job. When called on to shoulder such great responsibilities, there is no room for me to say no,” he said.
A commission to deal with illegitimately obtained party properties is “crucial to transitional justice, fair play between the political parties and deepening the nation’s democratization,” he added.
Koo said that as a lawmaker, he had worked hard to help draft the ill-gotten party properties law, and the legislation and the commission tasked with implementing the law were “unprecedented challenges for which it is impossible to ask others for guidance.”
The KMT should “let go of the party assets that are a hindrance to its rebirth,” Koo said, promising to carry out his new job “correctly and within the confines of the law.”
Koo was formerly a partner at Formosa Transnational Attorneys at Law and has served as director of the Taipei Bar Association, chairman of the Judicial Reform Foundation and chairman of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
Sources said that the Presidential Office and the Cabinet believe that Koo’s “mastery of the law, personal integrity and work ethic” would be important qualities for overseeing the effort to recover the private and public assets that the KMT is accused of having obtained during its years of authoritarian rule in Taiwan.
Koo will have to give up his legislator-at-large seat, as the Constitution bars serving lawmakers from concurrently holding a government post.
He will be replaced by former DPP legislator Julian Kuo (郭正亮), whose name was on the DPP legislator-at-large ballot in the Jan. 16 elections immediately after Koo’s.
However, Kuo’s return to the legislature could renew questions about his arrest in February on a drunk driving charge.
Additional reporting by Yang Chun-hui and CNA
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty