Bill Entitled “Statute Governing Transformational Justice” Could Spark Controversy over its Constitutionality
2017/03/01
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Bill Entitled “Statute Governing Transformational Justice” Could Spark Controversy over its Constitutionality
United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)
March 1, 2017
On the 70th anniversary of the February 28th Incident, President Tsai Ing-wen declared that she would accelerate the legislative action on the bill entitled “Statute Governing Transformational Justice.” From the content of the bill that has passed the initial review of the Legislative Yuan, we cannot but feel deeply worried about this soon to be finalized piece of legislation. According to the design of the statute, its principal authority and duties include “opening political archives”, “cleansing authoritarian symbols”, “preserving relics of injustice”, “reinstating injustices in court cases’, etc. In order to carry out these duties, the “Commission on Transformational Justice” shall be established. The statute takes precedence in the force of law over the Civil Code, the Personal Data Protection Act and all other laws that extend protection to private citizens and groups. If it is required for investigation, the commission may ask for the assistance of the police and the military police. Those who evade investigation or destroy, damage or hide political archives shall be imposed with a fine or prison term.
In view of the fact that targets of pursuit and investigation extend to all possible groups and individuals, it looks like we can already see a scenario in which the commission would, with the aid of the police and military police, crash into the homes that had been determined to be those belonging to the descendents of the “perpetrators.” If the acts carried out by Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee have already given rise to misgivings of being illegal and unconstitutional, our concerns that the Commission on Transformational Justice could be illegal and unconstitutional would not be far-fetched, and if so, they would be unimaginable.
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