Former Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Chu (陳菊) is to be appointed as Control Yuan president today, while doubling as head of the nation’s newly established National Human Rights Commission.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has drawn up a list of seven other people to serve on the commission, in line with the Organic Act of the Control Yuan National Human Rights Commission (監察院國家人權委員會組織法), which was passed by the Legislative Yuan in December last year and promulgated in January.
Under the act, the 10-member commission is to be headed by the Control Yuan president and composed of seven Control Yuan members, with its other two members to be selected from candidates nominated by the commission members and replaced annually.
Photo: Wang Jung-hsiang, Taipei Times
Chen, a Democratic Progressive Party member and a former Kaohsiung mayor, was imprisoned in the wake of the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident, when the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime arrested pro-democracy activists.
Other commission members to double as new Control Yuan members are Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容), a long-time women’s rights activist; former League for Persons with Disabilities secretary-general Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋); Youth Rights and Welfare secretary-general Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華); and Antonio Hong (鴻義章), a member of the Presidential Office’s Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee, said sources familiar with the topic, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The new Control Yuan members are to assume their duties from Aug. 1.
The other commission members are current Control Yuan members: Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲), a long-time activist for the rights of migrant workers and people with disabilities; former Judical Reform Foundation executive officer Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠); and environmental and human rights activist Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇), the sources said.
Tsai’s list nominated people with expertise and practical experience in various areas of human rights so that the commission would be able to competently handle a variety of rights issues, they added.
The sources said that Tsai nominated four women and three men to be on the commission, in line with the Organic Act of the Control Yuan (監察院組織法), which states that the “composition shall be diverse and include representatives from different ethnic groups or professional fields” and “no gender shall constitute less than one-third of the members.”
The Control Yuan, a body with wide-ranging government oversight powers, has 29 members, including a president and a vice president, who are nominated by the president and approved by the Legislative Yuan.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
MORE RETALIATION: China would adopt a long-term pressure strategy to prevent other countries or future prime ministers following in Sanae Takaichi’s steps, an academic said Taiwan should maintain communications with Japan, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is to lead a revision of security documents, Taiwanese academics said yesterday. Tensions have risen between Japan and China over remarks by Takaichi earlier this month that the use of force against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Prospect Foundation president Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) yesterday said Takaichi’s stance regarding Taiwan is the same as past Japanese prime ministers, but her position is clearer than that of her predecessors Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba. Although Japan views a “Taiwan contingency” as a “survival-threatening situation,” which would allow its military to