Speaking on the one-year anniversary of the Legal Aid Foundation (
The foundation provides free legal services to low-income people, including foreign nationals.
"The system of legal aid exists not only to help the underprivileged to file lawsuits but, more importantly, it reflects the questions of the underprivileged in the judicial and legal arenas and so reminds the government as well as the public of the need to push relevant legal regulations for more comprehensive development," Chen said.
"I hope the Legal Aid Foundation will help the public place importance on the rights of the underprivileged to file lawsuits, an entitlement mandated by the Constitution," he said in a speech during yesterday's celebration.
Chen said the foundation should also consider enlarging the pool of people it provides legal assistance to. He said he hoped the foundation would consider sending legal professionals to remote areas and outlaying islands to help those in need of legal services.
"While the quantity of cases the foundation has helped with is important, what really counts is quality of service," Chen said.
Noting the foundation will host an international forum in Taipei in October, Chen said that the event, which will be attended by representatives from more than 10 countries, would help enhance Taiwan's image as a human-rights oriented country as well.
The foundation has 19 branch offices nationwide. More than 1,900 lawyers are available to help the underprivileged file lawsuits.
According the foundation's statistics, it has worked on more than 7,000 cases since its establishment last July.
The foundation receives an annual budget of NT$500 million from the Judicial Yuan.
According to foundation secretary-general Cheng Wen-lung (
Cheng said the foundation has helped defendants in criminal cases appeal unfair verdicts, as well as victims of domestic violence and sexual harassment or rape, victims of discrimination or work injuries, as well as the disabled, Aboriginals, children and teenagers.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
The US’ joint strikes with Israel on Iran dismantled a key pillar of China’s regional strategy, removing an important piece in Beijing’s potential Taiwan Strait scenario, said Zineb Riboua, a senior researcher at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Middle East Peace and Security. In an article titled: “The Iran Question Is All About China,” Riboua said that understanding the Iran issue in the context of China’s “grand strategy” is essential to fully grasp the complexity of the situation. Beijing has spent billions of dollars over the years turning Iran into a “structural strategic asset,” diverting US military resources in the
RSS