The Legal Aid Foundation yesterday announced a new Aboriginal legal aid center amid questions over whether new Council of Indigenous Peoples’ legal interpretations would shield Aboriginal hunters from prosecution.
Issued in coordination with government agencies, the new Forestry Act (森林法), Fisheries Act (漁業法) and Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保護法) interpretations issued last month allow Aborigines to hunt, gather and fish on public land for self-use, following controversial prosecutions of Aborigines engaging in traditional hunting practices.
“Following the new interpretations, if there are not lawyers available to help defend Aborigines, we would still be likely to run into many problems,” said Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Icyang Parod, who is an Amis.
The council is to provide funding for five lawyers and five legal staff to be based at a new center in Hualien County.
Legal Aid Foundation chairman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said that while the new interpretation made sense given the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法), the main problem was that it was only for “reference” and lacking the legal force to bind prosecutors and judges.
“Without this interpretation, other laws could conflict with the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act, but the issue is whether courts and prosecutors will accept it, because they are the ones who are actually handling cases,” he said, adding that the interpretation was likely adopted due to the difficulty of formal legal amendments.
The foundation is to primarily function as a “lubricant” to get Aborigines the best deal possible under the current legal system, he said.
“I will never forget when local police decided that our annual New Year’s ‘sacrifice celebrations’ would be a good time to bolster their performance statistics,” said Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Ying (陳瑩), who is a Puyuma.
“Celebrations were disrupted after Aborigines on a traditional hunt were ambushed and arrested by police,” she said.
She called for the center to devote more resources to Taitung County cases, while also cultivating Aboriginal legal talent.
DPP Legislator Kolas Kotaka called for the eventual appointment of an Aboriginal director.
“It is extremely difficult for us to find Aboriginal lawyers because there are so few who are licensed — but we are still working toward that objective,” Lo said.
A Legal Aid Foundation employee said that the establishment of the center had been delayed for months because of Aboriginal legislators’ demands that only Aboriginal lawyers be hired, with the position of center director eventually eliminated because of a lack of suitable candidates.
While individual Legal Aid Foundation lawyers have taken Aborigines’ cases in the past, the center’s resources and personnel would be able to tackle more complex issues, such land rights in Aboriginal villages, said Association for Taiwan Indigenous People’s Policy executive director Yapasuyongu Akuyana, who is a Tsou, adding that government ownership of land and county-level zoning often stifle legal construction.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS