Taiwan opened the door to more international cooperation with European nations as Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) visited Germany and the Netherlands earlier this month to discuss enhanced mutual legal assistance and reciprocal visits.
“It was a very successful trip with meetings held with top justice officials of the hosting countries, and mutual judicial cooperation and further partnership with Taiwan were discussed,” Tsai said at a news conference on Wednesday at the Ministry of Justice in Taipei.
It was very significant to have a personal meeting in Berlin on July 4 with German Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann, Tsai said, adding that he invited Buschmann to Taiwan.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei Representative Office in Germany
“We originally had scheduled only for a half-an-hour meeting, but we kept on talking, going on for about an hour, and still felt we had not finished discussing our topics of interest,” Tsai said. “Going with the flow, I invited him to take a trip to Taiwan next time.”
“When Buschmann makes the visit here, he and I can have more discussion in depth, while he can see in person Taiwan’s democracy and freedom, and the functioning of our jurisprudence,” he said.
“Thereby he can better understand how Taiwan has safeguarded the core values of democratic society and protected freedom,” Tsai said.
“Buschmann said he would be happy to arrange a visit, so I really believe it was a very successful trip to European countries,” he said.
Other details were given by officials of the ministry’s Department of International and Cross-Strait Legal Affairs, who said it was planning to enhance Taiwan’s international judicial cooperation, to expand the government’s foreign affairs initiatives, to highlight Taiwan’s progress in human rights protection, and the working of the judiciary process and the court system.
Officials said the personal talks between Tsai and Buschmann are historically important, as this was the first time a minister of justice from Taiwan met with a counterpart from Germany since Taiwan and East Germany broke off diplomatic relations in 1950.
As criminals and gangsters operate across international borders, most countries rely on collaboration to fight crime, the officials said, adding that Tsai’s trip had the aim of boosting mutual legal assistance and other forms of cooperation between Taiwan and European countries.
Tsai participated in a forum on criminal justice, and all the delegates were invited to a supreme court and the Tegel Prison in Berlin, the officials said
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