Political parties should include people with disabilities on their lists of candidates for next year’s legislative elections, enabling them and their families to be represented, advocacy groups said on Wednesday.
There are 1.2 million people with disabilities in Taiwan, but they and their 5 million family members are not represented by any legislators with disabilities, Taiwan Association for Disability Rights chairman Peter Chang (張宗傑) told a news conference in Taipei, urging decisionmakers not to “make decisions for people with disabilities” if they are not involved in the process.
The issue is non-partisan, Chang added.
Photo: CNA
Major political parties can show that they stand with the disabled community by ensuring that people with disabilities run for legislator-at-large seats in the Jan. 13 elections, Parents Association for the Visually Impaired secretary-general Lan Chie-chou (藍介洲) said.
People with disabilities best understand the challenges faced by members of their community, and they urgently need to have representation in the legislature, said Shih Yung-mu (施雍穆), an adviser to the Federation of Spinal Cord Injured.
Although Taiwan has adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and enacted the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法), it is still difficult for people with disabilities to seek legal redress when they face discrimination, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsu Chih-jung (徐志榮) said.
Members of the disabled community should have seats in the legislature to help form policies that could better meet their needs and enable them to oversee the government’s implementation of such polices, Hsu said.
Shyu Jong-shyong (徐中雄) of the KMT in 1993 became Taiwan’s first disabled lawmaker after he was elected to represent then-Taichung County in 1992.
He served six terms in the legislature before resigning to take up a post as one of three deputy mayors of Taichung in 2011, when Taichung City and Taichung County were merged to form a special municipality.
A constitutional amendment passed in 2005 reduced the number of seats in the legislature to 113, stipulating that 73 lawmakers would be locally elected, six elected by indigenous communities and 34 at-large seats for political parties that receive 5 percent or more of the total vote.
Since Shyu’s first term, there had been at least one lawmaker with disabilities until the current term that began in 2020, when no parties nominated members of the disabled community high on their lists of at-large seats.
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