On Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) announced the establishment of the Presidential Office Human Rights Consultative Committee and said that according to two UN covenants signed last year — the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights — all signatory nations are required to establish a human rights commission.
He also said that to ensure the two covenants were smoothly implemented, the government would set up the human rights consultative committee in the Presidential Office, instead of attaching it to the Cabinet, the Judicial Yuan or the Control Yuan.
Indeed, human rights, the rule of law and democracy are the three main pillars of a modern constitutional government, but it is both frustrating and ironic to hear Ma talk about establishing such a committee.
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) proposed the idea of human rights legislation in his inaugural address on May 20, 2000. He also promoted the establishment of a national human rights commission and, on Oct 24, 2000, the Presidential Human Rights Advisory Commission was established.
Whether it was called the Presidential Human Rights Advisory Commission or by its later name, the Presidential Human Rights Advisory Committee, it achieved much in the promotion and protection of human rights, and worked toward the implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enshrining the two UN covenants into law.
In 2001, Liberal International awarded Chen with its Prize for Freedom in recognition of his hard work in, and contributions to, human rights.
Unfortunately, when the legislature was reviewing the government’s budget for 2006 after Ma’s election as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman in August 2005, the KMT used its legislative majority to pass a resolution demanding that the Presidential Office dissolve the Presidential Human Rights Advisory Committee, saying there was no legal basis for such a committee.
Even though at that time the regulations in the Basic Code Governing Central Administrative Agencies (中央機關組織基準法) stated that agencies were allowed to set up new groups to meet their needs and that the staff for such groups should be made up of staff from the related agencies, the political situation was such that the legislature could force the closure and disbandment of the Presidential Human Rights Advisory Committee.
The Republic of China Office of the President Organization Act (中華民國總統府組織法) makes no mention of setting up a human rights consultative committee in the Presidential Office. Now that Ma is president and no longer just chairman of the KMT, he has become a champion for human rights.
When comparing this withhow Ma, as KMT chairman, oversaw the termination of the Presidential Human Rights Advisory Committee, one cannot help but wonder if human rights work merely involves talking and showing how different one political party is to another.
The way Ma says that what was wrong yesterday is the right thing to do today; and that what was wrong when it was done by the Democratic Progressive Party is right now because the KMT is doing it, has become the first obstacle to the new committee’s human rights work.
It also shows how inconsistent Ma has been through the years.
Cho Chun-ying is a former deputy director-general of the Presidential Office’s department of public affairs and an associate professor at Chang Jung Catholic University.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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