Despite supporting an anti-discrimination bill drafted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), a number of civic groups yesterday raised doubts about whether the bill could be implemented once it becomes law.
Representatives from several civic groups made the remarks during a public hearing at the Legislative Yuan organized by Cheng yesterday.
The bill was drafted by Cheng’s office to combat discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, mental or physical disabilities, sex or sexual orientation.
The draft bill would also create a separate Cabinet-level commission for human rights protection and equality.
“I agree with most of the content in the draft bill and I think the bill’s intentions are great,” said Wu Jia-zhen (吳佳臻), TransAsia Sisters Association Taiwan’s North Taiwan Office director. “But I’m also concerned [about] how this attractive bill [will] be implemented once it becomes law?”
Wu said there were already anti-discrimination clauses in several existing laws — such as in the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) and the Act for Gender Equality in Employment (性別平等工作法) — but they have had little effect in combating discrimination because of a lack of enthusiasm among public servants.
She questioned how the proposed bill would be more effective if such attitudes do not change.
Gender/Sexuality Rights Association Taiwan secretary-general Wang Ping (王蘋) agreed.
Wang said existing laws already assigned jobs to different government institutions to fight discrimination, asking whether the proposed commission “would conflict with existing government agencies.”
Taiwan Association for Human Rights’ Advocacy and Campaign director Yeh Ting-chun (葉亭君) said the new commission must be granted independence and the power to investigate and promote anti-discrimination through education.
“If we want a commission to better protect human rights and equality, the commission must not be a passive one,” she said.
Looking into the draft bill’s details, Labor Rights Association executive director Wang Chuan-ping (王娟萍) said she did not understand why the bill excluded certain circumstances.
“Article 47 of the bill prohibits public servants from making discriminatory comments. However, Article 26 excludes many government agencies from the bill, including the Legislative Yuan,” Wang said. “But members of the Legislative Yuan are the ones who usually make the most openly discriminatory remarks.”
Wang said it didn’t make sense for Article 44 of the draft to restrict the scope of the bill “for national security reasons.”
“Acts that would really threaten national security are mentioned in other laws. Excluding application of the bill for national security reasons would result in excuses to discriminate against people legally,” she said.
She said it would be hard to define what “discrimination” is at work because employers can always come up with an excuse to avoid being charged after firing or refusing to hire someone based on ethnicity or sex.
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