Lawyer Chan Shun-kuei criticizes the Ma government's housing justice as a fraud

Photo/ Munch

The ugliness of politicians and the cunning of political parties, whenever elections come around, are like the full moon to a werewolf: the true form is exposed, with nowhere to hide! Democracy should be of the people, by the people, for the people (shared, governed, and enjoyed by all the people), yet the Ma government's governance is like the plutocracy described by Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz: "of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%," serving only the top 1 percent of the population pyramid, the powerful, wealthy, and business elite. So on the surface, to respond to boiling public anger, it proclaimed it would push the five housing justice laws, but the bills exist in name only, empty in substance, and are completely perfunctory.

To cope with land subsidence and extreme climate patterns, the Netherlands' Delta Committee spent as long as 2 years and 4,000 hours communicating and discussing with the public before finally drafting a set of long-sighted, highly consensual national land plans and flood-control strategies. The current implementation process has naturally been very smooth as well. But in Taiwan, where executive power has long been arrogant and dominant, Premier Wu Den-yih originally promised to hold a "Huashan sword debate" with the civil-society version of the Land Expropriation Act amendment, yet the official version did not even dare to discuss it clause by clause, and was secretly handed by party legislators straight to the second reading. After a series of protests on December 12 and 13 by farmers, youth, and members of the Taiwan Rural Front, and the outbreak of the first violent clashes in this wave of the farmers' movement in two years, although it ultimately proved futile, the related images and information, transmitted through the internet, have, it is believed, already laid the foundation for the Jasmine Revolution to come.

The reasoning of the Council of Grand Justices Interpretation No. 409 contains this passage: "Land expropriation has a serious impact on the people's property rights. As for all the requirements for land expropriation and the procedures that should be followed, the law should regulate them in exhaustive detail. The clarity and specificity of the expropriation purpose and use, the standards for weighing the public interest, and the urgency factors of expropriation should all be expressly stipulated by law, so that the competent administrative authorities handling expropriation cases and the judicial authorities conducting legality review have a basis. In particular, before the expropriation plan is finalized, the opinions of the landowners and interested parties should be heard, so that public-interest considerations and the protection of private interests can both be accommodated, and so that there is a effect of promoting transparency in decision-making."

But the Ma government almost entirely refused to accept the supporting systems to curb excessive expropriation, the provisions that good farmland should not be arbitrarily expropriated in the name of major construction without any standards, and the hearing system under which the Ministry of the Interior, before reviewing expropriation cases and deciding whether to approve them, should listen to the voices of the people being expropriated, different from those of government agencies. One of the reasons for refusal that the author personally heard was actually that the Ministry of the Interior lacked the manpower to hold hearings and listen to the people's voices. Even the legislative amendment proposal that an approval of expropriation disposition, which so gravely affects the people's lives, property, and work, should record the reasons for approval, was also bluntly rejected.

In addition, Ma Ying-jeou's most boastful "market-price expropriation" still leaves the determination of how much "market price" to be appraised by the Land Price Evaluation Committee, controlled in the hands of local government heads, and refuses to change to appraisal by licensed professional real estate appraisers; it is fundamentally the same medicine in a different bottle. And what laid bare the cunning face of the Ma team was that on the evening of the 13th, the Kuomintang suddenly proposed a amendment motion, making the newly revised Article 30 on so-called market-price expropriation uncommonly authorized to have its implementation date separately set by the Executive Yuan, rather than the usual practice of taking effect two days after promulgation by the president. From beginning to end, deceit! deceit! deceit! Even more absurd, after completing the clause-by-clause vote, the Kuomintang actually, while the DPP legislators were angrily protesting and not paying attention, smuggled through an accompanying resolution: the already-approved expropriation cases for the various lines of the Taichung City metropolitan mass rapid transit system may directly and separately apply the newly revised law. To fish for votes for the vote-panic Greater Taichung City in such a shameless way is speechless.

On December 5, the author heard face to face Interior Minister Jiang Yi-huah personally say that this official version of the amendment draft had already progressed from 60 points to 70 points, that it is very difficult to achieve legislative reform in one step, and that with such progress, one should cherish and seize it. The author cannot help but ask: by what right does the current Land Expropriation Act claim to already have 60 points? Why not only 30, 40, or 50 points? By what right does the official version of the amendment claim to have 70 points? Have the people ever graded it? I also want to ask Jiang Yi-huah: under the personal handling of senior Executive Yuan officials, even the market-price expropriation that the official version could barely boast about has an added provision that its implementation date shall be separately set by the Executive Yuan. I wonder how many points are left in the end after this legislative result? Ma Ying-jeou not only controls the executive power, but the Kuomintang, of which he serves as party chairman, also holds more than 2/3 of the seats in the Legislative Yuan. Under complete ruling, can there still be an excuse that legislators facing all sorts of monsters and demons must compromise? On December 13, there was a news report that Ma Ying-jeou issued an instruction the previous day that the five housing justice laws must be passed in this legislative session, and only then did those Kuomintang legislators willing to serve as his pawns have to burn the midnight oil. So if Ma Ying-jeou had the will, he could certainly have the bills amended to at least what he regarded as 100-point content (though his team thought it was only 70 points), rather than coming to tell the people that I have already generously given you a few more scraps of meat or a few bones, and you should be content. With complete ruling comes complete responsibility; the Land Expropriation Act is a domestic issue, unrelated to the international situation, and there should be no excuse whatsoever!

Second, the Housing Act was originally a bill responding to the high housing prices in the Greater Taipei metropolitan area, to solve the problem that even middle-class employed people and youth find it hard to have a home to live in. Originally the government was only willing to guarantee a 7% proportion of housing exclusively for disadvantaged use, and only after vigorous efforts by Legislator Chen Chieh-ju was it raised to 10%, but the provisions favorable to builders regarding incentives and subsidies for building social housing were given very generously. Moreover, it handed all the authority and responsibility for handling social housing to local governments. How can the central government control regional supply-demand imbalances? For example, Taichung City's old urban districts have a high vacancy rate, yet the city government desperately expands outward into farmland to carry out urban land readjustment and zone expropriation, greatly speculating on land in the readjustment zones.

As for the amendments to the Real Estate Brokerage Management Act, the Land Administration Agent Act, and the Equalization of Land Rights Act, which are crucial to actual-price registration of real estate, under pressure from the rich and builders, the requirement was relaxed from registering actual prices transaction by transaction to sectional registration, and moreover only registered without public disclosure, and further not used as a basis for taxation. No wonder many scholars came forward to sharply criticize it as fundamentally playing fake ball and fishing for votes!

This Ma team, which speaks of fairness and justice only with its mouth and has no disadvantaged people in its heart, in the face of the coming election, is still so arrogant and brutal; once it continues to rule, it will surely become even more unbridled, and the people may never have a day of turning things around. The people of Taiwan, who may face expropriation or forced urban renewal at any time, if they do not want to be reduced to the other 99 percent of squeezed and exploited labor slaves and farm slaves, must use their votes to throw it out. As for the coming second presidential candidate debate, it is hoped that the other 2 contenders will fully set out their respective policy views on agricultural issues (especially production and marketing and the protection of farmland) and the situation of excessive expropriation, so that the disadvantaged people can wait and see. (The author is a lawyer and a member of the Taiwan Rural Front)