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.
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