A man with a black belt in taekwondo who wanted to be a police officer was disqualified because he was 1cm shorter than the required height for police academy candidates.
Lin Shih-hao (林士豪), a Taipei resident, passed the special entrance for the Taiwan Police Academy in 2011. However, when he reported for training in February last year, school officials ordered him to have his height measured at the Taipei Wanfang Hospital.
After a hospital report established that Lin was 1.64m tall, he was dismissed as ineligible to join the force because of the requirement that male candidates be 1.65m tall, which is stipulated in Article 8 of the academy’s regulations.
Lin was upset by his disqualification and filed a lawsuit last year under the Administrative Appeals Act (行政訴訟法).
Lin, who says he has a black belt certification from the World Taekwondo Headquarters in South Korea, said that the ability to carry out police work depends on physical fitness and maximizing one’s strength, and as such height and body size are not decisive factors.
“I have a black belt in taekwondo and I am certainly fit enough for police work and could handle criminals,” Lin said.
“For police to enforce the law and to protect society, is a height requirement really that important?” he asked, adding that for many police duties such as forensics and traffic control, an officer’s stature is not an essential element.
He said that while some Asian countries have minimum-height requirements for police officers, in Japan it is 1.6m for men and in Hong Kong it is 1.63m.
In response, an official from the Civil Service Protection and Training Commission said that the police are responsible for law and order, and therefore must have the required physique and fitness.
“Police are gun-carrying civil servants,” and so their work is quite different from that of regular state employees, he said, adding that this allowed for “different treatment and requirements.”
As such, a minimum height requirement for police officers is not a violation of the equal rights enshrined in the Constitution.
The ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court stated that police work is of a special nature, and that an officer’s height is an important criterion.
An official from the National Police Agency said that the minimum height requirements of 1.65m for men and 1.6m for women had been in place for at least 30 years and are based on a national survey of average heights carried out by the Department of Health at the time the rules were enacted.
“The height requirements were based on police officers having to manhandle criminals, and being able to hold up riot shields when on crowd control duty at mass gatherings. Officers can only enforce law and order effectively with a suitable physique and level of fitness, leaving the public feeling safe and well protected. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for height and fitness requirements,” the official said.
A police officer surnamed Lee (李) added: “Rules are rules. I do not agree that exceptions should be made or else things will go out of whack.”
“If an officer is too short, then petty criminals and gangsters might feel they can look down on you. Also we have to carry a gun in the holster, which is a part of the police uniform, so it has to look right. The military also has height requirements,” Lee added.
Additional reporting by Huang Tun-yen
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS