WHITE TERROR ERA:Victims’ representatives said that full rehabilitation cannot be achieved if victims are not allowed to file suit against unjust military court verdicts

Taipei Times
Date: May 03, 2016
By: Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter

Academics and experts yesterday clashed over measures to promote transitional justice at a public hearing held by the Legislative Yuan’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee in Taipei.

The committee is deliberating a transitional justice promotion act, now that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) holds a legislative majority for the first time, following the January elections.

Hsieh Chen-yu (謝政諭), dean of Soochow University’s School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, said that the “soft authoritarianism” of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) rule under martial law called for a different approach to transitional justice from other nations because the KMT itself had moved in the direction of democratization, including the passage of legislation such as the Act Governing the Recovery of Damage of Individual Rights During the Period of Martial Law (戒嚴時期人民受損權利回復條例), the Compensation Act for Wrongful Trials on Charges of Sedition and Espionage During the Martial Law Period (戒嚴時期不當叛亂暨匪諜審判案件補償條例) and the February 28 Incident Disposition and Compensation Act (二二八事件處理及賠償條例).

Other academics and victims of the White Terror era disagreed, saying that past moves toward transitional justice were partial at best.

“Efforts to reveal the true face of history, rehabilitate victims and open new judicial investigations to call to account offending persons and groups have proceeded like ‘squeezing toothpaste’: passive and partial, if they were done at all,” said Li Fu-chung (李福鐘), a professor at National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Taiwan History.     [FULL  STORY]