Academics and civil groups yesterday urged the government not to back down from what they called the “basic demands” in its negotiations with China over an investment protection deal aimed at ensuring fair treatment for the estimated 1 million Taiwanese investors and others working in China.
The pact is expected to be signed by the end of this month, and there has been growing concern over its contents, especially over the arbitration method specified for resolving disputes.
The Alliance of Supervising Cross-Strait Agreements held a press conference yesterday to outline the “worries” over the content that both sides have reportedly agreed to. It castigated the government for “narrowly” characterizing the security issue for Taiwanese businesspeople in China as simply a technical problem of arrest notification. The alliance also accused the government of abandoning its position on a third-party arbitration mechanism.
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) has called the pact “a major breakthrough,” with Taiwan convincing China to agree to notify Taipei within 24 hours if anyone covered by the pact saw his or her freedom of movement restricted under certain circumstances, alliance convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) said.
“We absolutely do not think that [this article] alone would protect personal liberty. More elements need to be included in the agreement,” Lai said.
The alliance demanded the government ask Beijing to promise to remove articles 64 and 72 of its Criminal Procedure Law, which would allow Chinese authorities not to carry out the 24-hour notification if they determine that such notice would hinder an investigation.
There must be speedy notification in all cases, without exception, the alliance said.
However, a notification mechanism alone would not be enough to protect Taiwanese from being tortured or forced to confess, the alliance said. Only ensuring visitation rights to family members and lawyers as well as Taiwanese officials during detention could ensure such protection, it said.
The government must also demand that China promise in the new agreement to revise its Criminal Procedure Law to entitle suspects to have an attorney present during any questioning, it said.
The alliance also called on the government to push China to phase out its pre-arrest administrative detention system, as stipulated in Article 69 of its Criminal Procedure Law.
“We have seen several cases of Taiwanese businesspeople being kept in prisons for a month or more before trial. The legislature has asked China to review the pre-arrest detention system, but China has remained deaf. If the agreement is to be signed, China must give a promise that it will phase out the system in three years,” Lai said.
Honigmann Hong (洪財隆), who is an assistant professor in National Tsing Hua University’s China studies program, urged the government to insist that any disputes under the new accord be brought before an impartial third party for arbitration, rather than employing a bilateral settlement mechanism.
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