A draft refugee act yesterday passed initial review at the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee, with the final version establishing an asylum application process for the first time in the nation’s history.
It seeks to grant protection to victims of persecution, while stopping short of providing asylum guarantees to people persecuted because of their gender or sexual orientation.
“Today is the happiest meeting the Internal Administration Committee has had this session,” committee co-convener and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) said after an unusually smooth discussion session.
While this session’s committee meetings have been marked by extended quarrels over legislative rules and transitional justice legislation, yesterday’s committee finished the review in less than two hours, passing a draft bill that largely resembled the Executive Yuan’s official version.
Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) said the draft bill was originally presented under the administration of former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 2006, with the ministry handling refugees on a case-by-case basis.
The draft bill seeks to allow foreigners or stateless persons to apply for asylum if they can demonstrate that they have been forced out of their homelands because of war or natural disaster, while also granting asylum to those who demonstrate that they have ample reason to fear persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, social group or political views.
Amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), which passed initial committee review last month, could also be applicable alongside the proposed refugee bill to help groups such as Tibetans and Chinese dissidents if the draft bills are passed by the Legislative Yuan’s general assembly.
Yesterday’s committee discussion focused on several amendments proposed by legislators to further guarantee refugee rights, such as giving refugee claimants the right to appeal application rejections, granting applicants the right to receive a written decision in a language they can understand and forbidding the Ministry of Interior from drafting implementation rules that violate provisions of the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
Legislators also stripped the draft bill of language that would have denied asylum to people who would threaten the nation’s “good morals,” while requiring the ministry to “take into consideration” gender and sexual orientation in determining refugee status.
An appended motion proposed by DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) would have included gender and sexual orientation within the bill’s definition of protection against persecution for those who belong to a “special social group,” but was revised following opposition from Hua.
“We will pay attention to [gender and sexual orientation] while determining refugee status, but it would not be appropriate to write these into the law because portions of these issues will involve individual cognition,” Hua said. “Sexual discrimination is purely an individual feeling that would probably involve medical judgement, so these would be individual cases — what if a country does not allow someone to marry their partner and then they come to Taiwan seeking asylum?”
The draft bill is to be referred to the Legislative Yuan’s general assembly, along with a proposed ethnic fairness act passed by the committee on Wednesday.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to