The legislature yesterday gave preliminary approval to an agreement signed by Taiwan and Vietnam on judicial assistance amid concerns over ambiguity that the Judicial Yuan and lawmakers across party lines feared may favor Vietnam.
Because of these concerns, lawmakers on the legislature’s Foreign and National Affairs Committee appended a resolution to the agreement that said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) should negotiate with Vietnam should problems occur when implementing the treaty.
The agreement was signed by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vietnam and the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei on April 14 this year.
Wu Kuang-jau (吳光釗), a judge in the Civil Department of the Judicial Yuan, expressed disapproval of various items in the agreement, a rare move that saw government officials divided over a proposal referred by the executive branch to the legislature for deliberation.
Both Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers agreed with Wu’s concerns.
In accordance with the provisions of the agreement, Taiwan and Vietnam shall provide each other with legal assistance on civil matters in service of documents; investigation and taking of evidence; recognition and enforcement of judgments and decisions of the courts in civil matters and awards; and other matters stipulated by the agreement.
The civil matters referred to include civil, commercial, marital, family and labor matters.
MOFA Vice Minister David Lin (林永樂) said Taiwan and Vietnam needed the agreement because the number of lawsuits concerning civil matters has been on the rise in the past decade, in which 130,000 Vietnamese women married Taiwanese and a large number of Vietnamese workers came to the country. He added that there were more than 200,000 Vietnamese-Taiwanese.
“That there are about 420,000 Vietnamese in Taiwan necessitated the agreement,” Lin said.
Having failed to incorporate the Judicial Yuan’s suggestions into the agreement when it was negotiated with Vietnam, Wu told lawmakers that some vague articles in the agreement gave rise to the concern that Vietnam might refuse to recognize or enforce judgments and decisions handed down by Taiwanese courts.
“It is expected that many court rulings made by Taiwanese courts won’t be implemented in Vietnam as we have no understanding of the judicial system in Vietnam,” Wu said.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said he doubted the agreement provided more protection for Vietnamese in Taiwan and added Taiwanese might have unequal access to justice through the judicial system in Vietnam.
He also questioned why the government signed an agreement on civil matters instead of one on criminal matters that could have included an extradition clause and a prisoner exchange clause — a far more urgent issue from the Taiwanese perspective, he said.
KMT Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) suggested appending the resolution and urged MOFA and the Ministry of Justice — the two agencies in charge of negotiating the agreement — to take the concerns raised by the Judicial Yuan seriously.
The agreement was the third such treaty Taiwan has signed with non-diplomatic allies, following the agreements on judicial assistance in criminal matters signed with the US in 2002 and on assistance in criminal and civil matters signed with China last year.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
RSS