Court-martials during the Martial Law era were a “system of suppression” through which authorities violated human rights and freedoms, and through which the president could decide who lived or died, the Transitional Justice Commission said on Sunday in a new report.
Citing its research into the period, the commission said then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) had the power to review the rulings of all military tribunals — which were also used to try even civilians during that period — making him no different from an authoritarian dictator.
The 1931 ROC Political Tutelage Period Act (中華民國訓政時期約法) stipulated that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would lead the government and the military, and was applied to Taiwan after the Republic of China took control of it and its outlying islands in 1945.
In 1948, the National Assembly implemented the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion (動員戡亂時期臨時條款), and in May 1949 imposed martial law on Taiwan and the outlying islands, which was not lifted until July 15, 1987, by then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), although not in Kinmen and Lienchiang counties until 1992.
The provisions remained in place they were redacted by then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in 1991.
The Executive Yuan repeatedly said during the Martial Law era that the judiciary and military courts would handle different cases, with the latter retaining the power to rule on criminal cases, the report said.
The report cites the case of Lin Pang-chun (林邦均), who was arrested with two others on charges of financial crime in 1950, and sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but Chiang Kai-shek later reviewed their case and sentenced all three to death.
In 1975, the Executive Yuan requested that those accused of contravening the Criminal Code, the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍刑法) or the Act for the Control and Punishment of Banditry (懲治盜匪條例), and whose cases concerned national security or the military, have their cases reviewed directly by it, which would then transfer the cases to a military court for rulings, the report said.
Some victims of political persecution had their cases reviewed by senior military officers even though they were not in the armed forces, the report said.
Independent rulings were impossible under martial rule given the ultimate power that the president and senior military officers had over court rulings, it said.
Another case cited in the report is that of Changhua monk Kao Chih-te (高執德) and two others who were sentenced in 1954 to 12 years in prison for harboring communists, but were later executed after Chiang Kai-shek reviewed their case.
“Chiang [Kai-shek] ordered that he retain control of the outcome of military trials, a violation of the constitutional principle of the separation of powers,” the report said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
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,
RSS