Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) called on government agencies yesterday to speed up their handling of petitions filed by ordinary citizens seeking resolution or redress on various problems.
To better protect people’s rights and improve government efficiency, Liu said that all Cabinet-level agencies must improve the content of statutes governing public petitions, improve bureaucratic handling of petitions and move forward deadlines for the screening and ruling of petitions to as early a date as possible.
Topping the list of 3,170 petitions filed last year were 506 from people who were complaining about restrictions on their right to travel abroad because of tax evasion disputes, a report on petition handling by the government last year said.
The second-largest type of petitions concerned Chinese spouses’ applications to obtain the right to come to Taiwan for family reunion and permanent settlement. There were 353 such cases, the report said.
Cases involving foreign workers’ employment problems made up the third-largest group of petitions, totaling 203, the report showed.
So far this year, agencies under the Executive Yuan have handled 3,976 petitions, including 806 old cases.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
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