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Lu calls for human rights committee to be preserved

Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday appealed to the public to let a consultative office established under the Presidential Office continue to operate despite a legislative resolution calling for it to be disbanded.

"While the president will make a final decision on the matter, I personally think that the Human Rights Advisory Committee should be allowed to continue because its operation does not require any legal basis," said Lu, who chairs the body.

The opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan passed a resolution last month requesting that the six non-institutional bodies set up under the Presidential Office be dissolved.

They are the preparatory group for the national human rights memorial museum, the Gender Mainstreaming Advisory Panel, the Science and Technology Advisory Committee, the Constitutional Re-engineering Office, the Youth Corps and the Human Rights Advisory Committee.

The Presidential Office is expected to finish a review of the fate of the six institutions as well as the National Unification Council (NUC) by the end of this month.

Citing the Standard Organic Law of Central Government Agencies (中央政府機關組織基準法) -- amended last June -- Lu argued that the Presidential Office was authorized to form the Human Rights Advisory Committee under the law and does not need to enact more legislation to do so.

She also dismissed talk that the committee wastes taxpayers' money, saying all committee members provide their services free of charge.

Tsai Ming-hwa (蔡明華), a member of the advisory committee, yesterday called on the legislature to review three draft bills regulating the duties of the committee's members and the structure of the committee as soon as possible if they dislike the idea of non-institutional agencies so much.

Tsai said that the Presidential Office sent the three bills to the Executive Yuan in June 2001, which then relayed them to the legislature, but they have since become bogged down in legislative procedures.

Committee member Wellington Ku (顧立雄) said the legislative resolution only reflects the legislature's lack of a human rights concept and shows its negative attitude toward non-institutional bodies.

Ku said it baffles him why the legislature is so afraid of the Human Rights Advisory Committee, as its decisions are made for the reference of the executive branch.

Meanwhile, Lu yesterday expressed hope that a reform program would be implemented in 2008 to cultivate higher caliber lawmakers, prosecutors and judicial personnel. Currently, law school graduates can become lawyers and prosecutors, but Lu said she would like to see only mastser degree holders in law admitted.
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