Mon, Jan 15, 2018 page3

• Group lists last year’s top 10 democracy incidents

  ENTRENCHED: While some events marked a point of progress, the group said, the DPP should avoid outdated mindsets and not bow to capitalist forces, which hurt democracy

  • By Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter
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  Taiwan Democracy Watch yesterday listed what it deemed the 10 most important democracy-related incidents that occurred in the nation last year, including a constitutional interpretation in favor of same-sex marriage, the arrest and conviction of Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲) in China, and the passage of the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例).

  It ranked the same-sex marriage interpretation as the most important democratic event last year.

  On May 24 last year, the Council of Grand Justices issued Constitutional Interpretation No. 748 in support of allowing gay couples to register for marriage. The council has requested the legislature to amend relevant laws within two years to guarantee the rights of gay people.

  

  National Taiwan University law professor Yen Chueh-an presents the results of a survey by Taiwan Democracy Watch at a news conference in Taipei yesterday, listing its 10 most important democracy-related events from 2017.

  Photo: CNA

  The arrest and conviction of Lee by Chinese authorities, and ensuing campaigns in Taiwan calling for his release, as well as the passage of the transitional justice act on Dec. 5 were jointly ranked as the second-most important democracy-related events last year.

  The passage of the latest amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) and ensuing protests, as well as an amendment to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) that substantially lowers the thresholds for initiating and approving a referendum were also high on the list, followed by the legislation for the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program, which does not have a sunset clause setting a closing date for the program.

  Lower on the list were the controversies surrounding the pension reform, the gathering of the National Congress on Judicial Reform, and frequent Chinese military activity around Taiwan.

  Lower on the list were authority debates surrounding President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) High-Level Meeting for Policy Coordination, a prolonged protest by Aboriginal groups against the designation of traditional Aboriginal territories, and the recall votes for New Power Party Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and Pingtung County’s Shouyuan Village (壽元) warden Chen Ming-lun (陳明倫).

  “The selection of the Lee case as the second-most important democratic event of last year is the [foundation’s] way of calling on the government to take action against external factors on Taiwan’s democracy,” Tamkang University professor Kurt Tu (涂予尹) said, adding that the government should take a tougher stance with China when it extends its jurisdiction to a Taiwanese.

  Lee’s case and Chinese military activities are external factors that have a negative effect on Taiwan’s democratic development, while others are either political or social issues, the foundation said.

  While some events, such as the same-sex interpretation, marked a point of progress, others showed drawbacks or challenges to Taiwan’s democracy, the foundation said.

  Much of the legislation launched by the Democratic Progressive Party was entrenched in an outdated mindset, such as the labor law amendments, which see the codification of existing, but unnecessarily reasonable working conditions established since the authoritarian era, National Taiwan University professor Huang Chang-ling (黃長玲) said.

  “The close affinity between politics and business [as seen in the labor law amendments] is not necessarily corruption, but politicians’ kowtowing to capitalist forces,” which is detrimental to democratic development, Huang said.

  Liberal democracy with its strong capitalist bent is not enough to build a welfare democracy, and the government should avoid inheriting the developmentalism mindset of the past authoritarian regime, which could not sustain Taiwan’s economic development today, Huang added.
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