Women's groups demand swift property law review

Womens groups rallied yesterday to demand an immediate review of Taiwan's property law, saying they are fed up with lawmakers' idleness and preoccupation with a war of words.

More than a dozen protesters from the Awakening Foundation (婦女新知) and the Warm Life Association for Women (晚晴協會) attended a meeting of the legislature's Judiciary Committee yesterday to pressure lawmakers to begin their work on amending the property law.

The amendments to be reviewed, among others, contain changes to the marital property system which will allow wives for the first time to be able to manage and dispose of their own properties rather than allowing them to be controlled by their husbands.

Though scheduled to begin at 9am, the committee meeting did not commence until 11am when the number of legislators present finally reached the required quorum of six.

When the meeting began, the women lashed out at the legislators for being tardy and demanded that they take up their law-making work immediately.

"Look at the records, you'll be surprised how these lawmakers are wasting taxpayers' money every day, with some rarely attending meetings and some turning the meetings into a show time to attack opposition parties," Su Chien-ling (蘇芊玲), chairperson of the Awakening Foundation, said to the media.

"When our concern is not their concern our interests mean nothing to them. We will no longer tolerate this. Here is the message to lawmakers: If you don't take the voters' interests into account, you're going to see the consequences in the elections," Su warned.

A draft bill of amendments to the property law has been shelved in the Judiciary Committee since DPP legislator Chou Ya-shu (周雅淑) proposed it in April of last year.

The women's groups alleged that only seven out of 18 members of the Judiciary Committee have attended half of their meetings between February and May. They added that the legislators present seemed more interested in mudslinging than in working on piles of bills waiting for review.

Before they began discussing the bill, the legislators present defended themselves.

Hsieh Chi-ta (謝啟大), from the New Party, refuted the attacks from women's groups and said she could not accept the way they were pressuring the legislators.

"There may be some delay but what I think is really bad is that you're trying to give an impression that we lawmakers never work unless people like you pressure us," Hsieh said.

Little progress was made in yesterday's meeting and the committee will continue to review the bill today.

Another proposed change to the law would allow for a spouse to have the right to receive income from the other spouse for doing household chores and assuming childcare responsibilities.

To prevent any attempts or acts to dodge an equal division of property, the amendments also equip potential victims with the right to request for an injunction against those who try to avoid an equal division of property in the event of a divorce.