After delays in debating the Human Rights Protection and Compensation for Hansen’s Disease Patients Act (漢生病病患人權保障及補償條例), the legislature finally passed and enacted the Act last year, though with less than satisfactory content.
Since the Act came into force, the Department of Health has been so inactive in directing local health authorities to help people with Hansen’s disease — also known as leprosy — to apply for compensation that many patients have had to turn to churches and human rights groups for help.
Some of these people still don’t know their rights or how to apply.
There have even been cases in which local health bureaus misused the medical histories of patients while handling their applications, and in which health personnel have taken inappropriate measures based on misconceptions and fear of the disease, and this has caused distress among patients and their families.
The health authorities have simply ignored the law and neglected their duties.
Worse, there have been several cases in which patients died before the department completed its reviews of their applications.
In these cases, the department went on to reject the applications, citing Article 5 of the Act, which stipulates that only living people, and not their next of kin, are covered by the law.
It is astonishing that the department would assume such a patronizing and careless attitude in handling applications.
The compensation in the Act was intended to address the physical and mental hardship that Hansen’s disease sufferers have experienced.
Although the entitlements apply to the individual and cannot be transferred, inherited or used as security, the intent of the law is that once a plaintiff has expressed to the authorities his or her intention to apply for compensation, his or her right transforms from one of non-property damages to a claim for monetary compensation.
Consequently, it becomes an inheritable property right. A similar regulation exists in Article 195, Paragraph 2 of the Civil Code (民法).
That being the case, the legislative intention of the words “living survivors” in Article 5 and “exclusive right” in Article 9 of the Act is that the claimant must be living at the time that the claim is made, and that the right to make a claim does not extend to the heirs of someone who has died before exercising it.
The department’s review of applications should not be thought of as having the power to decide whether leprosy patients should receive compensation; this right is mandated by the Act itself and the department has no authority to interpret it.
The department is only responsible for confirming whether a claimant contracted Hansen’s disease “between Oct. 25, 1945, and the enactment of the provision” or “whether they have been hospitalized at a certain period of time.”
Even if the applicant dies, the department should fulfill its administrative responsibility. After verifying that an applicant suffered from Hansen’s disease, the department should pay compensation to the applicant or his or her heirs in accordance with the law.
This should not be affected by an applicant dying after submitting an application.
Is the Department of Health incapable of carrying out such a simple task? If so, it makes us wonder about the government’s sincerity in respecting the rights of those with Hansen’s disease.
Liu Ching-yi is an associate professor of law in the Graduate Institute of National Development at National Taiwan University.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG AND JULIAN CLEGG
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