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Commission urges educating judiciary on gender equality

The Commission on Woman’s Rights Promotion has launched a petition calling for measures to educate judicial personnel on gender equality issues after two controversial acquittals of men indicted for sexual harassment.

Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), the convener of the commission, on Thursday chaired his first meeting of the panel since taking office on May 20 and expressed his support for the goals of the petition, which was initiated by Chou Ching-yu (周清玉), a member of the commission and former Democratic Progressive party (DPP) legislator.

Liu instructed the commission to form a task force to talk with Judicial Yuan President Lai In-jaw (賴英照) about the need to increase awareness of gender issues, Cabinet Spokeswoman Vanessa Shih (史亞平) said yesterday.

Chou’s petition was a response to two not-guilty verdicts handed down in cases of alleged sexual harassment. Last August a man indicted for fondling a woman’s bosom was acquitted, while in June a man who was indicted for kissing his ex-wife’s 13-year-old daughter was also found not guilty.

The rulings were a great shock to anyone with any understanding of gender issues and reflected the gap between the aim of the Sexual Assault Prevention Act (性侵害犯罪防治法) and Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法) and the views of judges, Chou said.

“Despite the existence of the acts, we have actually failed to achieve the objectives of the legislation. The rulings have hurt the judiciary’s integrity and hurt society and woman’s rights,” Chou said.

Chou said the panel should take the problem up with the Judicial Yuan and jointly map out a program to train judicial personnel in gender equality issues.

These two cases should be reviewed from the perspective of gender equality, Chou said, adding that sexism should not play a role in court rulings.

“Respecting judicial independence and having judicial staff and civil servants from other government agencies embrace the concept of gender mainstreaming are two different things. The damage has been done; we can’t pretend that it didn’t happen,” she said.

Chou’s proposal was signed by the other 16 commission members who were appointed by the former DPP government. The other 14 members of the 30-seat commission are the premier and Cabinet ministers.
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