The EU yesterday welcomed the Executive Yuan’s unveiling on Wednesday of draft act on same-sex marriage and said it hoped that LGBTI rights in Taiwan would continue to advance.
European Economic and Trade Office (EETO) Head Madeleine Majorenko said on Facebook that she “welcomes the draft act on same-sex marriage proposed by the Executive Yuan, and looks forward to the continuous advancement of LGBTI rights in Taiwan.”
“Though it is already one week after Valentine’s Day, Ms Majorenko would still like to wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s and that all shall be well, Jill shall have Jill,” a play of words on the English saying “all shall be well, Jack shall have Jill,” the EETO wrote.
Photo courtesy of the European Economic and Trade Office
Officially titled the “enforcement act of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748,” the bill is the first in Taiwan to be named after a constitutional interpretation to avoid causing disputes between supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage.
The bill was drafted in line with a ruling by the Council of Great Justices on May 24, 2017, in which the judges said that the prohibition of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
Following the passage on Nov. 24 last year of a referendum that said that the the Civil Code should not be amended to allow marriages between people of the same sex, the Cabinet decided to create a special separate draft bill to legalize same-sex unions, which is expected to be enacted by May 24.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift