The role of military justice and presidential powers in recent Taiwanese history -- a worrying tale

As many blog-readers are aware, the Island of Formosa (currently Taiwan) was called Dutch Formosa for some time in the mid-seventeenth century, after the Dutch East India Company had ousted the Spanish and had established Fort Zeelandia, which enabled Dutch traders to use the island as a base for trade with China and Japan. The times of the Pax Hollandica in Formosa are long gone, but interest in the island still remains … 

 

The Taipei Times ran this interesting article earlier this week, with details of a recent report of the Taiwanese Transitional Justice Commission.

 

The report covers the so-called Martial Law-period in Taiwan’s more recent history--also known as the White Terror--which lasted from the beginning of the Republic of China (1949) until martial law was finally repealed in 1987. As Reuters reported in 2008, during this period 140,000 people were imprisoned or executed for being perceived as anti-Kuo Min Tang or pro-Communist.

Although the Government of Taiwan (the Executive Yuan) at the time repeatedly assured that the (regular) judiciary and military courts would handle different cases, in practice the military courts did rule on civilian criminal cases, in particular where 'national security' was at stake. 

 

In the situations a military court had provided a verdict, these verdicts were not definitive, but could be ‘reviewed'--often with deadly consequences--by President Chiang Kai-shek, the head of the Executive Yuan, or by senior military officers.  

 

The report concludes by stating: “Chiang Kai-shek ordered that he retain control of the outcome military trials, a violation of the constitutional principle of the separation of powers.”

 

How true. Presidents and other Heads of State should not interfere in rulings of the independent judiciary.