President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has failed to take substantial measures to protect residency rights, land rights advocates said yesterday, demanding that the president initiate a review of the laws and regulations which stalled under the previous administration.
Dozens of members of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the Taiwan Anti-Forced Eviction Alliance, the Economic Democracy Union and several self-help organizations protested outside the Taipei Guest House near the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, shouting their opposition to continued forced evictions and threatening to hold a protest march later this month if no new measures are taken.
They called for the Urban Planning Act (都市計畫法), the Land Expropriation Act (土地徵收條例), the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例) and other related regulations to be revised to require rigorous proof of the public interest before local governments expropriate properties. They also called for new requirements for public hearings and transparency.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
They urged Tsai to use her leverage as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson to stop controversial eviction cases in DPP-controlled counties and cities until they have been individually reviewed by Presidential Office’s Human Rights Consultative Committee to guarantee the residency rights of affected people under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was passed by the Legislative Yuan in 2009.
“If the government is serious about resolving the problem of forced evictions, it should not wait until the Council of Grand Justices strikes down a law before acting — it should move proactively to review all related laws,” Economic Democracy Union spokesman Hsu Po-jen (許博任) said.
The Council of Grand Justices in July ruled that the urban land consolidation regulations are unconstitutional for failing to guarantee public hearings and the notification of property owners. The Urban Renewal Act was declared unconstitutional in 2013 for similar reasons. Amendments to address the ruling have been stalled in the legislature ever since.
“In the past, Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] local governments would bare their fangs when they carried out violent demolitions. Now the only difference is that DPP local governments do a better job at public relations, but they still carry out violent demolitions,” said Lin Yen-tung (林彥彤), a housing specialist for the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
Even though residency rights are guaranteed by the covenant — which is now occasionally invoked in court cases — implementation of rights have been held back by the government’s failure to follow through with promises to review and revise laws to bring them into accordance with the covenant, he said.
“We only learned that our land would be appropriated after all the executive procedures were finished,” said Lee Wei-tzu (李蔚慈), a landowner affected by the controversial construction of a new highway in Taichung’s Shigang District (石岡).
City officials had not ensured every landowner had received a written notice, instead relying on an online announcement, she said.
It amounted to bullying older people who do not know how to use the Internet,” she said, adding that she had traveled to Taipei because Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) of the DPP has failed to follow through on campaign promise to end the expropriations.
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