Since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) returned to power with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) election, Taiwan’s human rights situation has gradually deteriorated. When Chinese emissary Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) visited Taiwan last November, the government mobilized 5,000 police officers to suppress public demonstrations and even went so far as to ban the display of the national flag and broadcasting of Taiwanese songs. The chilling atmosphere spontaneously led our thoughts back to the Martial Law era.
Now KMT legislators have come up with the idea of adding an immunity clause for elected officials to the draft amendment to the Computer-Processed Personal Data Protection Act (電腦處理個人資料保護法). This would open the door wide to attempts to invade the privacy of any individual citizen. KMT legislators may claim to be doing this to protect the public, but they are in effect reflecting the mindset of those who want to establish a new Martial Law era.
The amendment — proposed by KMT Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) — says elected officials would be exempt from informing an individual that private information has been gathered about them for use by the elected official in an elected assembly for interpellation or any other political purposes related to their duties.
If this amendment were passed, elected officials would be able to gather information about a person’s assets, debt, background, medical history, information, faith, political inclination and even sexual orientation and other activities at will, simply by claiming that they are carrying out their political responsibilities. If that were to happen, information about our private lives would become available to anyone.
In addition, come election time, incumbent elected officials would be able to use this privilege to find out everything about their opponents and their campaign teams and use it to attack them or create a scandal. We cannot even begin to contemplate the preposterous situation we would be in if such powers were extended to elected officials at all levels of government.
It is ironic that the Ministry of Justice claims “there are no threats to private data protection” while KMT legislators want to use the data protection act to legitimize violating people’s privacy. We must remind these KMT legislators that the duty of a legislator is to monitor the government, not to investigate the private matters of individual citizens.
An individual’s private matters can only be investigated by the judiciary in accordance with the law and on a case by case basis. For almost a year now, the government has been unable to govern, the economy is in a recession and people have problems making ends meet while the government is leaning heavily toward China and denigrating Taiwan’s national sovereignty.
The KMT, with its absolute legislative majority, fails to fulfill its duty of monitoring the government and putting it back on track, and instead it directs its efforts toward suppressing the public. These are not the actions of an institution representing the public, but rather of one that wants to help the government threaten it.
In the US, for example, the Congress’ right to investigate is based on monitoring the executive organs. It is exercised by congressional committees and individual congressmen cannot do so at their own will.
The right is normally exercised through public hearings, and the investigated parties and witnesses can be forced to attend a hearing to give evidence and provide relevant data. The investigated parties and witnesses can also hire defense lawyers and the media can attend and report on the process.
Article 45 of the Act Governing the Exercise of Legislative Power (立法院職權行使法) clearly states that: “The legislature may, following a decision by the legislature, establish an investigative committee, or, following a decision by a committee, establish a special investigative team and request that concerned institutions provide reference materials for issues pertinent to a specified case.”
Judging from this, legislators have no individual investigative rights and they are restricted to investigating public institutions, with no right to gather information about individual citizens. Taiwan’s investigative rights are much less complete than those of the US. Still, amazingly, KMT legislators dare to do nothing about strengthening supervision of the government and instead use this data protection act to expand their powers in ways that are not supported by the Act Governing the Exercise of Legislative Power, thus violating fundamental, constitutionally protected human rights.
The exemption clause proposed by KMT legislators has been called “a clause aimed at specific legislators.” The nickname highlights how KMT legislators that are in the habit of revealing information as a way of settling political scores have proposed this measure to exempt themselves from legal responsibility. Ever since the Ma government came to power, it has been busy settling scores with officials from the previous government.
This is often achieved by having a legislator reveal information that is then echoed by every pan-blue media outlet and political commentator to force the hand of prosecutors, police and judges. They will not let up until the accused has been deemed guilty in the court of public opinion even before they have their day in court. The targets of this settling of scores have their private and personal details revealed to the public, trivial or significant, true or false — it is character assassination, pure and simple.
The sharp end of these tricks will be turned on the general public and this is as frightening as the coming of a new white terror. This is no trivial matter, and Ma and KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) should make it clear beyond any doubt whether they support this attempt by KMT legislators to overstep their duties.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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