The Ministry of Labor (MOL) has declared that it shall not appeal the High Administrative Court's ruling that the government may not seek the repayment of loans it made to various factory workers whose plants closed in the 1990s, Premier Jiang Yi-huah stated today. The some 480 workers who had already repaid such loans will be reimbursed in full, he added.
The premier hopes that this decision will end the social unrest caused by the case over the past several years.
Laborers who had repaid their loans willingly in accordance with administrative procedures should be acknowledged for their law abidance and should receive equal treatment with those who had not, said the premier. "We therefore support the MOL's decision, which is conducive to social harmony and safeguards workers' rights and interests," he affirmed.
The premier pointed out the case had involved a contentious dispute about whether the loans were in the domain of private law or administrative contracts. In the past, civil courts had ruled in favor of the government and considered those loans to be in the realm of private borrowing. As such, workers owing money to the government were obligated to pay it back.
However, many people later believed the loans were a form of subrogation, meaning the government intervened as a third party on the workers' behalf, raising the money to assist them to meet their familial needs and afterwards seeking indemnity from the owners of the shuttered plants. Because of differing views on the nature of the case, the litigation had lasted for over a decade.
On March 7, the High Administrative Court reversed previous civil court verdicts and ruled that the loans belonged to public contract law, not private borrowing regulations. Based on this new legal foundation, the government had room for discretionary decisions, and it elected not only to abandon further appeals but also to return the money previously paid by workers to service their debts. This way of dealing with the case is fair and may allow everyone involved and the nation as a whole to move forward in peace and harmony, Jiang stated.