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) is filled with clauses that are unconstitutional, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said yesterday, adding that the KMT would file for a constitutional interpretation by the Council of Grand Justices regarding the implementation of the act.
However, the KMT would first request a constitutional interpretation on the Law of Interpretation Procedures For Grand Justices (司法院大法官審理案件法), which states that a request for an interpretation may be filed only if one-third of incumbent legislators sign a petition, Hung said.
The Legislative Yuan has 113 seats, of which the KMT holds 35. According to the current law, the KMT needs at least 38 signatures to file for an appeal.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Hung said that the KMT plans to ask the council to make an exception for the party, which would then enable it to file another request for the council to make a constitutional interpretation of the ill-gotten properties act.
“The Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] government claims that the [ill-gotten properties] act is a part of the implementation of transitional justice, but it is only a political move to destroy the KMT and install themselves as the sole, uncontested, political party in Taiwan,” Hung said.
“The DPP said the act was based on Taiwan being a nation ruled by law and used East Germany as an example of how the party expected the act to handle the KMT’s assets, but it is only an attempt to cover up the unconstitutional clauses in the act,” she said.
“East Germany was a Soviet Union-backed Communist autocracy and lacked democratic legitimacy in the first place, and after the reunion of the two Germanys into modern Germany, there was ample reason to handle the party assets under the Socialist Unity Party of Germany,” she added.
However, Hung said that Taiwan’s democratic constitutional order has not been interrupted since the Republic of China (ROC) announced the implementation of its Constitution in 1947, under which the DPP has been elected to the presidency twice and there have been three alternations of political power since 2000.
KMT Evaluation and Discipline Committee Chairman Liu Han-ting (劉漢廷) said that despite the unorthodox method the party is taking to request constitutional interpretations, the 1,125th interpretation given on Sept. 10, 1999, said that while parties and individuals could not request a constitutional interpretation until all other judicial options have been exhausted, if the facts surrounding the incident are clear and the incident is clearly related to the Constitution, the council could accept individual requests for interpretations.
Hung said that the KMT has pointed out at least 10 items in the act that it believes are unconstitutional, adding that the KMT hopes the Council of Grand Justices will accept the party’s petition in order to protect Taiwan’s democracy.
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
RSS