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FEATURE: Assembly law: relic of the nation’s authoritarian past

Marchers carry a giant rainbow flag at the 2008 Taiwan Gay Pride parade in Taipei on Sept. 27. Demonstrations and rallies are governed by the Parade and Assembly Law, a piece of legislation that many activists, police and lawmakers say is designed not to protect freedom of assembly and speech but to limit it. PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES

Designed more to keep demonstrations in check than to protect the rights of protesters, the Assembly and Parade Law (集會遊行法) is widely seen as a relic of a one-party state that needs to be heavily revised or abolished.

The law was promulgated in January 1988, just six months after the 38-year Martial Law-era came to an end.

Although Article 1 of the law says the purpose of the legislation is to “protect the freedom of the people to parade and to assemble” and to “maintain social order,” its critics range from social activists to lawmakers and law enforcement personnel, who say the law is overly restrictive.

“The Parade and Assembly Law was adopted 20 years ago and many things have changes since, so the law needs some changes too,” said Tsai Chi-hsun (蔡季勳), secretary-general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, one of the most vocal groups campaigning against the law.

The law says that a group or individual must submit an application for a parade and assembly permit six working days in advance of a demonstration. The application should include the names, addresses, occupations, dates of birth and national ID numbers of the organizers.

The organizers must also provide a rally schedule detailing the starting and ending time and events, the purpose of the rally, an estimate of the number of participants and details of any vehicles that will be used.

The law also states that rallies and demonstrations may not take place near the Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan, the Judicial Yuan, the Examination Yuan, courthouses, military bases, foreign diplomatic missions and the residencies of the president and vice president.

“It’s really a hassle [to apply for a parade and assembly permit],” said Li Jieh-mei (李介媚), a member of Taiwan Friends of Tibet who has helped her organization arrange numerous activities in Taipei.

“You’re not done after filing an application for a parade and assembly parade permit to the police department, because then you need to apply to the city government for another permit to use public roads, squares or any public spaces,” she said.

Although the police department is also part of the city administration, the organizer must submit two separate applications in person, Li said.

Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡), executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, said she has no complaints about the application process — because her organization ignores it.

“We just never applied for permission for the rallies we’ve organized,” Lin said with a laugh. “We just show up and finish whatever we’ve planned and leave before the police can do anything.”

If caught demonstrating without a permit, participants may be told by police that they are engaged in “illegal conduct” and ordered to “disperse right away.”

But the police issue three warnings before taking action to disperse demonstrators by force, so the trick for protesters without permits may be in judging how long they have until warning No. 3.

“There are unofficial guidelines issued by the National Police Agency that we should wait for around 15 minutes before handing out a first warning and around another 15 minutes before the next warning,” a police officer who has often handled demonstrations said on condition of anonymity.

“But we don’t really follow it. We know which groups usually make peaceful appeals and which don’t. We make our own judgment about how long we’ll let them be there,” the officer said.

How to handle the situation is essentially left to the discretion of individual police officers.

“The police are entitled to too much power and they can seriously abuse that power,” Green Party Taiwan Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said.

Pan went on to say that, while freedom of expression is enshrined in the Constitution and peaceful demonstrations are a legal way to exercise that freedom, “the police are fully authorized to approve or reject your application and whether you are in violation of the parade law depends entirely on their definition.”

“I have been arrested once for violating the Parade and Assembly Law because about five or six of us were walking and distributing flyers near Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. I don’t see how that constituted an ‘assembly,’” he said.

Violators can face prosecution, as in the case of former Taiwan Environmental Protection Union chairwoman Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華).

Chen was convicted in February of violating the assembly law after she launched a solo sit-in hunger strike in front of the National Communications Commission last year.

“We don’t need a special law on demonstrations,” Tsai said.

“Any road traffic concerns are covered in the Road Traffic Management and Punishment Law [道路交通管理處罰條例]. If demonstrators engage in vandalism or violence, there’s the Criminal Code and we also have the Social Order Maintenance Act [社會秩序維護法],” Tsai said. “I don’t see the purpose of [the assembly law] other than to restrict freedom of expression.”

Tsai said having organizers notify government authorities in advance of a demonstration would be enough.

“There’s no guarantee that someone who receives a permit won’t break a law and we’ve seen so many examples of groups holding demonstrations with permits that have proceeded peacefully,” she said.

Tsai said the restrictions on where protests can be held should be scrapped, too.

Several legislators across party lines have voiced support for amending or abolishing the law. But actions speak louder than words, and legislators have not made any progress toward doing either.

“But I doubt they really want to change the law,” Pan said. “It’s a good tool for the government.”
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