Taiwan judicial body to replace Chiang Kai-shek busts

0 Comments | Asian Political News, April 22, 2002

TAIPEI, April 18 Kyodo

Taiwan's top judicial body, the Judicial Yuan, will soon replace a bust of late ruler Chiang Kai-shek with the Goddess of Justice to underline the judiciary's independence from politics, a local evening paper reported Thursday.

The Taiwan version of the ancient Greek Goddess of Justice is represented by an old woman dressed in a traditional Chinese gown and holding up a balance in her right hand, while hugging the omnibus of modern Chinese law known as the Complete Volume of Six Laws with her left.

On her left, she is flanked by a young sika deer, an indigenous species, symbolizing the localization of the justice system, according to a design sketch published by the China Times Express.

Chiang, who fled to Taiwan with some 1 million Chinese Nationalist (KMT) soldiers and supporters after the communist takeover in mainland China in 1949, is a controversial figure due to his iron-fisted authoritarian rule, but he is still highly revered among veteran soldiers.

While statues and busts of Chiang have successively been mothballed at many other public institutions such as schools and universities, Chiang still adorns the lobby of the Judicial Yuan building, which also houses the Justice Ministry.

A Judicial Yuan spokesman told Kyodo News that plans to replace the Chiang bust were initiated after President Chen Shui-bian came to power two years ago, ending more than five decades of KMT rule.

Judicial Yuan President Weng Yueh-sheng ordered that Chiang's bust be removed after repeatedly facing inquiries from foreign visitors about the bust's meaning, putting him in a delicate spot given that Taiwan is now a democracy.

An architecture professor at National Cheng Kung University in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan was commissioned with the design of the Goddess of Justice.

Since Chen came to power, portraits of Chiang and his son, the late President Chiang Ching-kuo, are no longer hung on the walls of government offices, schools and government-related institutions.

Only the portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of modern China, and the incumbent president are now on display.

Chiang's portrait has also been dumped from the latest banknotes, which were designed before Chen became president, except for the new NT$200 note, although older bills featuring the generalissimo remain in circulation.