Third Republic Transitional Justice Legislative Package — Legislative Notes and Implementation Roadmap v1.2

v1.2 · Updated 2026-09-20 · Free China Movement (FCM) · Legislative Notes & Implementation Roadmap · English

I. Legislative Purpose

This note provides a unified legislative basis, interpretive principles, institutional boundaries, and sequencing for four model laws: the Truth Commission Act, the Archives Openness Act, the Transitional Justice and Victim Reparation Act, and the October 1 Memorial Day Act. Together the four laws serve fact-finding, archives preservation and disclosure, victim remedy, accountability under the law, public commemoration, and non-recurrence — but they must not substitute political score-settling for individual responsibility, judicial process, and the safeguarding of basic rights.

II. Constitutional Compatibility Baseline — the Constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan)

This legislative package takes as its core constitutional baseline the principles established in the Constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan): democratic republic, popular sovereignty, protection of basic rights, administration according to law, judicial remedies, and the binding of power by law. Article 1 of the Constitution provides that the Republic of China is a democratic republic; Article 2 provides that sovereignty resides in the whole body of citizens. The current Additional Articles adjust the constitutional order currently operating in ROC (Taiwan). Any future constitutional restoration, linkage, or institutional reconstruction concerning mainland China must proceed through an open, peaceful, and democratically legitimate legal process; these model laws must not on their own be taken to resolve all constitutional-level questions.

III. Unified Drafting Standards

1. Statutory reservation: matters involving compulsory access, personal reputation, privacy, property, reparation, archives restrictions, witness obligations, and penalties must have a clear legal basis.
2. Due process: before any determination materially adverse to an individual is made, the individual must be informed of the principal facts and grounds and given a reasonable opportunity to respond, to be represented, and to seek remedy.
3. Individual responsibility: no one may be presumed guilty solely on account of party, military, government agency, unit, family, region, class, or identity affiliation.
4. Separation of fact-finding from criminal liability: a truth commission may make factual findings but must not substitute for a court’s pronouncement of criminal guilt.
5. Proportionality: restrictions on archives, privacy limitations, witness protection, and other limitations on rights must have a defined purpose, necessary scope, time limit, and review mechanism.
6. Judicial review: administrative decisions that materially affect rights should in principle be reviewable by an independent court.
7. Victim-centred but not ex parte: victims’ testimony, dignity, privacy, safety, and remedy must receive priority protection, while the basic procedural rights of those named are equally safeguarded.

IV. International Reference Norms and Their Legal Status

This legislative package draws on the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, annexed to UN General Assembly Resolution 60/147, as well as the UN principles and practical tools on anti-impunity, the right to truth, archives preservation, and truth commissions. To be clear: Resolution 60/147 is a set of principles and guidelines adopted by the UN General Assembly, whose text “recommends that States take them into account”; it is not a treaty that automatically takes direct legal effect domestically in the ROC. Its value lies in offering widely adopted international standards for remedy, reparation, information, fact-finding, and non-recurrence; specific domestic authority must still be granted by the applicable constitution and legislation.

V. Foreign Experience: Referenced, Not Copied

(A) South Africa

South Africa’s Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act No. 34 (1995) established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by statute; its statutory objectives included investigating gross human rights violations as completely as possible, giving victims a voice, and proposing reparations and measures for non-recurrence. The Act also provided an amnesty regime under specified conditions — a product of South Africa’s specific constitutional and political reconciliation arrangements. This package borrows only its structure — express statutory authorization, with investigation, reparation, and judicial functions kept separate — and does not adopt amnesty as the default rule for a future Chinese transition.

(B) Germany: Handling of the Former East German State Security Archives

According to the German Federal Archives, the Stasi Records Act and the Federal Archives Act together form the legal basis for access to the Stasi records. Individuals may apply to view records concerning themselves; close relatives may apply, under statutory conditions, for records concerning missing or deceased relatives; research, media, and civic education also have statutory channels of access. The experience shows that opening historical archives can at once incorporate privacy protection, use restrictions, identity verification, and independent management.

(C) Principles for Comparative-Law Use

Foreign institutions serve only as comparative-law material. The direct domestic-law basis for formal statutory provisions must come from the applicable Constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and its laws, together with a future democratically authorized legislative process; applicable international human rights and humanitarian law obligations must each be explained according to their specific legal status — soft law, treaties, and customary international law must not be conflated. Any foreign mechanism must undergo localized assessment of constitutional compatibility, enforceability, fiscal sustainability, and social risk.

VI. Four-Laws Responsibility Matrix

Law	Core Tasks	Must Not Substitute	Main Outputs
Truth Commission Act v1.2	Fact-finding, pattern analysis, preliminary victim identification, institutional recommendations	Criminal courts, prosecutorial agencies	Investigative decisions, victim register, final report
Archives Openness Act v1.2	Freezing, inventorying, transfer, preservation, declassification, disclosure	The courts’ assessment of evidence	Archives catalogue, disclosure decisions, review decisions
Transitional Justice and Victim Reparation Act v1.2	Victim eligibility, rehabilitation of reputation, reparation, recovery, emergency relief	Criminal prosecution	Eligibility decisions, reparation decisions, rehabilitation documents
October 1 Memorial Day Act v1.2	National commemoration, public release of the victim register, education and annual archives releases	Fact-finding agencies	Annual commemoration, register, education and archives releases

VII. Priority Historical Scope

Upon formal implementation, the scope of investigation and commemoration shall include, but not be limited to: the major persecutions of the Cultural Revolution period; the deaths and other serious victims of the Great Famine caused by the “Great Leap Forward” and related state policies, grain requisitions, and governance failures during 1958–1961; prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, and other victims persecuted since 1949 for their thought, conscience, religion, expression, journalism, scholarship, association, peaceful political participation, or human rights activities; those killed, wounded, detained, sentenced, or otherwise victimized in the crackdown of June 3–4, 1989 and its aftermath; and civilian victims of major sieges, blockades, grain requisitions, bombings, and other military operations during the Chinese Civil War — including the civilians who died or were severely harmed in the 1948 Siege of Changchun from prolonged blockade, food shortages, and starvation. Specific facts, numbers, and responsibility must still be established case by case on the evidence.

VIII. Implementation Roadmap

Phase 1: Days 0–30

• Issue an immediate archives-preservation order prohibiting the destruction, transfer, alteration, or deletion of relevant paper and electronic archives;
• Conduct risk-tiering of materials held by detention, prison, court, public security, state security, military, party-affairs, propaganda, civil-affairs, grain, health, and local agencies;
• Establish a temporary emergency victim-assistance and witness-protection mechanism.

Phase 2: Days 30–180

• Establish by law a national archives transitional-management body, a truth commission preparatory body, and a provisional reparation office;
• Complete the inventory of high-risk archives, digital backups, chain-of-custody protection, and the first batch of disclosures;
• Launch open nomination of commissioners, conflict-of-interest review, and victim-application registration.

Phase 3: 6–18 Months

• The truth commission begins open and confidential hearings;
• The reparation commission begins emergency relief prioritizing medical care, subsistence, families of the disappeared, and elderly victims;
• Establish National Victim Register v1 and a disputed-cases marking mechanism;
• Courts establish expedited judicial-review procedures for archives, investigation, and reparation disputes.

Phase 4: 18 Months–5 Years

• Publish interim reports by theme and region;
• Advance systematic archives opening, individual reparations, rehabilitation of reputation, and institutional reform;
• Publish each October 1 the newly confirmed register additions and newly declassified archives catalogue;
• Transfer cases where criminal suspicion exists and the evidence meets the transfer standard to independent judicial authorities, to be handled in accordance with the law.

Phase 5: Mission Complete

• The truth commission completes its final report and sunsets as prescribed by law;
• All archives are transferred to the permanent national archives institution;
• Reparation and judicial remedy are transferred to standing institutions;
• The legislature periodically assesses non-recurrence measures, the education system, and the national commemoration system.

IX. Unified Interpretation Rules for the Four Laws

Where the four laws conflict in application, priority shall go to the interpretation that best protects fact-finding, victim remedy, individual rights, judicial independence, and archives integrity at the same time. Any determination of criminal responsibility rests ultimately with the independent court having jurisdiction; truth-inquiry reports, administrative reparation decisions, and memorial registers must not on their own constitute criminal convictions.

X. Textual Consistency and Amendments

As of v1.2, this note serves as the unified public drafting baseline for the four model laws. Any subsequent amendment of any one law touching shared definitions, evidentiary standards, institutional powers, judicial review, or archives rules shall be accompanied by a four-law consistency review, and substantive changes shall be explained in the public version.

Official and International Reference Materials

• ROC Presidential Office: the Constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan) — main text and Additional Articles.
• UN General Assembly Resolution 60/147: Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims.
• United Nations: Updated Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity; Rule-of-Law Tools for Post-Conflict States: Truth Commissions.
• South African Government: Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act 34 of 1995.
• German Federal Archives: Stasi Records Act / Federal Archives Act and the archives-access regime.

Return: Third Republic Transitional Justice Legal Package

Comparative implementation evidence

ROC (Taiwan) comparison: Transitional Justice, Victim Remedies & Political Archives — comparative implementation evidence. The statistics and case-flow data on that companion page concern ROC (Taiwan), not mainland China; they are used only to test institutional design, sequencing, safeguards and measurable delivery.

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