The number of applications for constitutional interpretations not filed by the government has risen in the past 10 years, indicating that the public is increasingly aware of constitutional rights, Judicial Yuan President Lai In-jaw (賴英照) said yesterday.
In a report on constitutional rights delivered at the Presidential Office on Constitution Day yesterday, Lai said 171 applications had been filed for constitutional interpretations since 1999.
The applications are submitted to the Council of Grand Justices, which interprets the Constitution.
Of those 171, 130 were filed by members of the public.
By comparison, 24 petitions were filed between 1967 and 1976, all of which were filed by government agencies, the head of the Judicial Yuan said.
Lai said the public better understood its civil and constitutional rights since Martial Law was lifted, leading to more civil petitions to the grand justices.
Many of those petitions were filed over controversies concerning the rights, duties and jurisdictions of various public offices, Lai said.
“Seeking constitutional interpretations is the most effective way to settle disputes, “ he told an audience that included President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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