TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The new government committee to investigate the allegedly ill-gotten assets of the opposition Kuomintang took another step closer to its starting work Wednesday as its chairman presented a list of members.
Wellington Koo, a prominent attorney who was elected Democratic Progressive Party legislator last January, will head the committee, though the new position will also force him to vacate his legislative seat, which will be taken over by Julian Kuo, a former lawmaker and prominent political commentator.
The formation of the group is a consequence of the passage last month of the new Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations. The KMT tried to block the passage, as under current circumstances, it is likely to become the focus of attention due to allegations it illegally took over buildings, land and other assets in the period after it replaced the Japanese colonial government in 1945.
Koo visited Premier Lin Chuan Wednesday morning to present him with the list of members of the committee, officially named the Committee of Illegal Party Asset Settlement. As his deputy, he still maintained the choice of Hung Pai-ken, the deputy director-general of the Ministry of Justice Agency Against Corruption, despite objections from a prosecutors' review committee against his taking up the position.
Koo had also found two out of three special members, namely Lo Cheng-chung, an assistant professor at the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology’s Institute of Financial and Economic Law, and Shih Ching-fang, a former taxation department head at the Pingtung County Government. Lo reportedly already worked on a probe of the KMT assets before 2008, and the results of that investigation would be looked at by the new committee, reports said.
The list of eight regular committee members included several attorneys, accountants, former KMT spokesman Yang Wei-chung, and Lin Che-wei, an activist with links to the Sunflower Movement. Koo said he had been tapped because his knowledge of the Internet would contribute to the transparency of the committee proceedings.
Asked whether he planned to meet the KMT soon to discuss the committee’s work, Koo said the timing would have to be right to avoid getting drawn into a war of words. First it was necessary to collect all historic documents and records about the assets, while also determining which party-affiliated organizations also needed to be investigated, Koo said.
The main opposition party reportedly wanted to take the new law to the Council of Grand Justices to test its constitutionality. KMT leaders have said the act is unfairly singling out its own assets.