Fri, Jul 28, 2006 page8

• Editorial: Keeping liberty shackled

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  Taiwan has an unworkable political system.

  The Constitution that provides the basis for this government has lasted for 60 years simply because it has been irrelevant. Dictators do not allow their power to be fettered by laws.

  Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) was no exception to this rule, and he instituted many laws that made a mockery of liberty and democracy.

  Since the dark era of Chiang and his police state, Taiwan has made the first steps toward democracy, but the success of this experiment is far from assured. Given the lack of interest among the nation's political establishment in engaging in a discourse about the nature of Taiwan's democracy, there is cause for much concern.

  Earlier this week, for instance, police summoned two professors because for the past few weeks they had been giving speeches criticizing the president and the major parties at CKS Memorial Hall in Taipei.

  The police claimed that it was not the content of the speeches that attracted their attention, but rather the fact that the two had allegedly violated the Assembly and Parade Law (集會遊行法), which regulates freedom of assembly. This is alarming.

  Article 14 of the Constitution says: "The people shall have the freedom of assembly and association."

  Except that they don't, because later in the Constitution, Article 23 states "All the freedoms and rights enumerated in the preceding Article shall not be restricted by law except by such as may be necessary to prevent infringement upon the freedoms of other persons, to avert an imminent crisis, to maintain social order or to advance public welfare."

  In short, all of the rights enumerated in the Constitution are "guaranteed," so long as the government wants you to have them. Whenever it is necessary to "maintain social order" or "avert an imminent crisis" then any civil rights you think you're entitled to will last as long as a candle flame in a typhoon.

  This is why, during the authoritarian period, the government could institute laws such as the Assembly and Parade Law in the first place, while maintaining the fiction that Taiwan was a democracy.

  "Sure," people say, "but now things have changed."

  The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has lost its grip on power. Taiwan is a democracy now. No one is arrested for advocating independence, or for forming a political party anymore.

  Which is true. For now.

  Yet all of the mechanisms of authoritarianism are still in place.

  Why is that? Why haven't our leaders and our intelligentsia made an issue of this? Is it because they don't want Taiwan to be too democratic? Do they want the individual's rights to be forever subordinate to the rights of the state?

  Some argue that resistance to the idea that individual rights are inalienable is the influence of Confucianism, of collectivism or of elitism. Such arguments are based on the belief that "isms" make Taiwanese fundamentally different from other people that have experimented with democracy, such as Americans, the French and the British.

  Such narrow ideas -- that Oriental despotism is the preferred method of governance for non-Western states -- reek of racism and ignorance. In actuality, Taiwan's elite is so caught up with personalities and partisanship that it cannot discuss principles of governance.

  So it is left to the people to ask the important questions: What are the fundamental principles that Taiwanese want their government to uphold? What lines must be drawn between the government and the people?

  But most important: Having at last secured their liberty, how can Taiwanese keep it?
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