AMONG THE ANCIENT fears of mariners is to be washed ashore on a foreign land with no hope of return to their native land or being held captive as pawns in a power struggle over which they have no control. Both of these ancient fears have become true for Captain Evangelos Lazaridis and Chief Engineer Vasileios Sardis of the Greek cargo ship the M/V Amorgos. Over six months ago their vessel ran aground on the south coast of Taiwan. As the ship broke up it dumped thousands of tonnes of oil into the ocean, creating a highly publicized environmental disaster. The cleanup of the spill has been completed, no criminal charges have ever been filed against them but they remain prisoners in Taiwan, apparently indefinitely. They are pawns being used by Taiwan's Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to extract concessions out of the vessel's insurer. Such use of individuals as bargaining chips is contemptible. The Taiwanese government must take immediate steps to free these crewmen.
In a very real sense these crew members are being held hostage for a ransom. Taiwan's EPA has placed a detention order on them which keeps the crewmen from leaving Taiwan, thus they are hostages. The "ransom demand" made by the EPA is for the ship's insurance carrier to sign certain assurances regarding its liability for damages resulting from the oil spill. The EPA claims it has the legal authority under provisions of the Ocean Pollution Control Act to keep the two crew members prisoners here because the ship's insurer refuses to make the assurances demanded by the EPA. The Taiwan Association for Human Rights has strongly condemned the indefinite detention of the two crew members.
This holding of the two prisoners, done entirely outside any judicial channels, is condemnable for a number of obvious reasons. First it is a direct violation of Taiwan's Constitution. Article 8 of the Taiwanese Constitution clearly states, as would be expected, that no person shall be detained except by a judicial organ in accordance with the procedure prescribed by law. The EPA is an administrative body, not a judicial body. Its indefinite detentions of the crew members without any judicial review is analogous to a type of martial law where people are imprisoned at the Executive's whim and favor.
To use two metaphors from British legal history it is a cross between the Star Chamber and the Tower of London.
International human rights law takes a dim view of Star Chamber-like proceedings too. Under international law all persons detained have a right to a judicial review of their detention within a reasonable time. The key phrase is "judicial review."
As Attorney Ken Chiu (
Holding the two crew members prisoner does little to ensure that a third party, the maritime insurance carrier, will make the assurances the EPA is demanding. There are far better ways of attempting to ensure that the insurance company accepts responsibility. The EPA is simply using the crew members as pawns because it is easier than doing the legal work that would be involved in some alternative solution.
Holding the two crew members prisoner does one thing however; it creates the image abroad that Taiwan is an island of savages where taking of hostages is still an acceptable way to solve money disputes. Taiwan is always complaining about its poor, limited international image but then will turn around and do something like this that marks Taiwan as a kind of little renegade island with nothing even close to a rule of law.
The whole incident calls into question the government's commitment to human rights and human rights diplomacy. It is hypocrisy to claim that human rights and human rights diplomacy is a high priority and then allow foreign crew members to be held as pawns in a money squabble between the EPA and some maritime insurance company.
Brian Kennedy is an attorney who writes and teaches on criminal justice and human rights issues.
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