Rights commission setup proposed

An association of 22 groups advocating the establishment of a "national human rights commission" yesterday released a proposal for the organization law of such a commission. According to the draft, the national human rights commission (NHRC) would come under the Office of the President.

Representatives from the groups stressed that the institution's independence and autonomy from the government are paramount.

The league has advocated the establishment of a NHRC and has worked on the draft for about six months. Mab Huang (黃默), the convener of the drafting team and the chairman of the Political Science Department of Soochow University, said that, "The underlying idea of the draft was to give balanced consideration to global trends and Taiwan's position on human rights."

He also said that although the draft had been worked on for six months, it was still in a preliminary stage and is expected to elicit discussion on the issue.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), in his inauguration address, announced the new government's intention to set up a national human rights commission. Huang said that the draft comes from civil groups and so represents the strength of civil society.

The "Paris Principles," which contain a set of criteria for national human rights institutions and which were endorsed by the UN Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly in 1992, were an important reference for the draft, the representatives said.

"The independence [of the human rights institution] is essential. The NHRC should be independent from government and partisan interference," Huang said, "It should be independent in respect of budgets, personnel affairs and investigation powers."

According to the draft, the NHRC would consist of 15 members -- eight chosen by the president and seven selected by the legislature; members would serve a six-year term on the basis that half of the commission is re-selected every three years; members would be required to withdraw from party political activities during their terms.

The commission members would come from three fields: academia, social movements, and law, according to the draft.

The representatives stressed that the draft seeks to widen social participation in working toward improving human rights.

Peter Ng (黃文雄), former chair of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, said that the ideal way to set up the NHRC would be to make it completely independent of the Office of the President and the five Yuans. However, such a design would involve making constitutional amendments would be very difficult to achieve.

"The second choice, therefore, is to seek only to amend the organizational law of the Office of the President." Ng said.

Stressing cooperation between the government and civil society, the representatives also said that the NHRC would not entirely replace the role of civil groups in campaigning for human rights.

"It's not that the civil groups will hand over the tasks of improving human rights to the government after the establishment of the NHRC. Instead, judging from foreign experiences, after national human rights institutions are set up, civil society becomes even more active," said Ng.