Politics

Activists urge ROC to comply with UN human rights covenants

• Publication Date：03/12/2012
• Source： Taiwan Today

Legal experts and activists called on the ROC government March 9 to fast-track legal amendments so the country’s laws will conform with two international human rights covenants ratified by the Legislature in 2009.

Up to 29 percent of all local laws considered to be in contradiction of the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are still waiting to be amended, according to Kao Ying-cheng, an attorney and member of the nongovernmental Judicial Reform Foundation.

“All laws were supposed to be amended within two years of the conventions’ implementation Dec. 10, 2009, but that deadline has passed,” Kao said.

“Some recent court rulings have even applied laws made outdated by the domestic implementation law,” he said, citing a prominent case involving the Assembly and Parade Act.

National Taiwan Normal University associate professor Lin Chia-fan was indicted for leading a demonstration in November 2008 protesting police actions that trespassed on people’s right to peaceful assembly and demanding that the Assembly and Parade Act be scrapped.

Lin was found not guilty Nov. 30, 2011, by the Taipei District Court. After prosecutors appealed, he was again ruled not guilty Feb. 22, 2012, by the Taiwan High Court.

The article of the Assembly and Parade Act under which Lin was prosecuted, however, is in contravention of article 21 of the covenant on civil and political rights, Kao said, and thus should no longer be effective.

“The high court should have rejected the case outright as having no basis in law,” Kao said. “By failing to do so it missed the opportunity to deliver on the government vow to protect human rights.”

Chang Wen-chen, National Taiwan University associate professor of law, said it is impossible to predict when the Legislative Yuan will complete all the necessary legal amendments, but in the meantime the courts should take up the responsibility of basing their rulings on the two international covenants.

According to a 2011 year-end report by the Ministry of Justice, 76 laws and regulations await revision, while 187 have been changed to conform with the covenants. (PCT-THN)