A draft refugee act yesterday passed initial review at the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee, with the final version establishing an asylum application process for the first time in the nation’s history.
It seeks to grant protection to victims of persecution, while stopping short of providing asylum guarantees to people persecuted because of their gender or sexual orientation.
“Today is the happiest meeting the Internal Administration Committee has had this session,” committee co-convener and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) said after an unusually smooth discussion session.
While this session’s committee meetings have been marked by extended quarrels over legislative rules and transitional justice legislation, yesterday’s committee finished the review in less than two hours, passing a draft bill that largely resembled the Executive Yuan’s official version.
Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) said the draft bill was originally presented under the administration of former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 2006, with the ministry handling refugees on a case-by-case basis.
The draft bill seeks to allow foreigners or stateless persons to apply for asylum if they can demonstrate that they have been forced out of their homelands because of war or natural disaster, while also granting asylum to those who demonstrate that they have ample reason to fear persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, social group or political views.
Amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), which passed initial committee review last month, could also be applicable alongside the proposed refugee bill to help groups such as Tibetans and Chinese dissidents if the draft bills are passed by the Legislative Yuan’s general assembly.
Yesterday’s committee discussion focused on several amendments proposed by legislators to further guarantee refugee rights, such as giving refugee claimants the right to appeal application rejections, granting applicants the right to receive a written decision in a language they can understand and forbidding the Ministry of Interior from drafting implementation rules that violate provisions of the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
Legislators also stripped the draft bill of language that would have denied asylum to people who would threaten the nation’s “good morals,” while requiring the ministry to “take into consideration” gender and sexual orientation in determining refugee status.
An appended motion proposed by DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) would have included gender and sexual orientation within the bill’s definition of protection against persecution for those who belong to a “special social group,” but was revised following opposition from Hua.
“We will pay attention to [gender and sexual orientation] while determining refugee status, but it would not be appropriate to write these into the law because portions of these issues will involve individual cognition,” Hua said. “Sexual discrimination is purely an individual feeling that would probably involve medical judgement, so these would be individual cases — what if a country does not allow someone to marry their partner and then they come to Taiwan seeking asylum?”
The draft bill is to be referred to the Legislative Yuan’s general assembly, along with a proposed ethnic fairness act passed by the committee on Wednesday.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at