The Ministry of the Interior wants to see a new law to settle the controversy over whether to establish a national fingerprint database, Vice Minister Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) said yesterday in response to a suggestion put forth by a grand justice on Friday.
According to Chinese-language newspaper reports, Lin Tzu-yi (林子儀), a grand justice, made the suggestion in a meeting convened by the Council of Grand Justices while it mulled a constitutional interpretation of the controversial fingerprinting issue last week.
Lin's suggestion was echoed by other participants Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達), Wellington Ku (顧立雄), and Su Yiu-chen (蘇友辰), lawyers from an association seeking to protect the victims of crime.
"It's a possible solution to settle the dispute via enacting proper laws," Chien said in an interview, adding that "the need to enact new laws implies that the fingerprinting provision in the Household Registration Law (戶籍法) would be unconstitutional."
The constitutional interpretation came in the wake of the government's controversial policy for compulsory fingerprinting for national identity cards, on the legal basis of Article Eight of the Household Registration Law.
The article stipulates that people claiming new national identification cards must submit their fingerprints, which critics say the provision encroaches on human rights.
The program, which was scheduled to begin Friday, was halted on June 13 due to the Council of Grand Justices' "temporary injunction" against the initiative, which will last until a constitutional interpretation is rendered.
The council's decision was made in response to a petition filed by Democratic Progressive Party Legislators on May 31 and backed by a wide coalition of over 100 human rights, legal and civic reform and social groups.
The constitutional court is set to open hearings on July 27 to hear oral arguments from representatives of the administrative and legislative branches. The review of relevant information needed to give a constitutional interpretation took place at a meeting held last week.
"The problem that remains is the constitutionality of the provision. If legislation supporting the provision is passed and is constitutional, then Article Eight of the Household Registration should be constitutional as well," Chien said.
Chien also reiterated the importance of the fingerprinting policy, claiming that people should not oppose it just because there is a possibility that the fingerprint data could be leaked.
"No such problem has ever occurred at the Criminal Investigation Bureau, where some 9.24 million fingerprint files are kept," Chien said.
In accordance with the current law, fingerprints would be put on record, but not used by law enforcment, Chien said. "The inefficient regulations surrounding the purpose of the a national fingerprint database need to be resolved by the proper law."
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods