President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday he would protect human rights and fight corruption, one day before two UN covenants become legally binding.
The legislature ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on March 31. The nation signed them 42 years ago, but they had never been validated by the legislature.
The legislature also approved the Act Governing Execution of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (公民與政治權利國際公約及經濟社會文化權利國際公約施行法), making the two covenants legally binding.
Ma signed the covenants on May 14 and later sent them to the UN Secretariat for deposit, but they were returned because the country left the UN in 1971.
Ma yesterday said that although the UN rejected the documents, the execution decree that will become effective today showed Taiwan’s willingness to participate in the international community and perform its international obligations.
Ma made the remarks while attending an event to promote the implementation of the Act and the issuance of anti-corruption stamps.
Yesterday marked International Anti-Corruption Day and today is International Human Rights Day.
“Vote-buying and corruption are not only twins but Siamese twins ... As the Chinese saying goes: If the upper beam is straight, the lower beam will be on a line,” Ma said.
Ma said he had asked the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) to conduct a blanket review of all laws and regulations to ensure that they conform to the two UN conventions.
He has also vowed to eradicate illegal eavesdropping and said phone tapping would only be tolerated if it was legal and necessary.
Ma said the Presidential Office was considering setting up a human rights advisory committee, but that it would have to be compatible with the Constitution.
Meanwhile, Covenants Watch — a coalition of over 40 civic groups in the country concerned with human rights — questioned the government’s determination.
The activists made the remarks at a press conference yesterday after the MOJ submitted a report on laws that may be in violation of the two covenants.
“We are very disappointed at the MOJ report because it put too much emphasis on unimportant and superficial detail, rather than talking about substantial issues,” said Lin Feng-jeng (林峰正), executive director of the Judicial Reform Foundation and spokesman for Covenants Watch. “We really doubt that the government is sincere about implementing human rights measures as stated in the two covenants.”
Lin said that the MOJ called a clause in the Act of Temple Supervision (寺廟監督條例) in violation of the principle of equality because it excluded temples in Tibet and Sikang Province (西康).
Sikang was a province in China when the country was still under Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) control. After the Chinese Communist Party took power, the western part of Sikang Province was merged into Tibet, while the east became part of Sichuan Province.
“Don’t laugh — because this is what the government considers an important human rights issue,” Lin said after people who attended the press conference broke into laughter.
The MOJ also considers clauses in Presidential Office regulations on hiring part-time workers that require the office to give employment opportunities to the economically disadvantaged and to ascertain the job applicant’s loyalty to the country in violation of the principle of equality.
“However, the MOJ seems to believe there’s no problem with the detention system in our judiciary or the leak of information regarding cases in the judicial process,” he said.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International-Taiwan chairman Huang Wen-hsiung (黃文雄) said the government should come up with a well-structured training program for public servants and the general public on human rights awareness.
“So far there is only a 12-hour, four-session course for human rights instructors for the public servants — I really doubt how effective the 12-hour course can be, and how much would public servants learn from these instructors who received only a 12-hour education in human rights,” Huang said.
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