The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed the Pingpu Indigenous People’s Identity Act (平埔原住民族群身分法), which stated the definition of what a Pingpu indigenous person is and the standards of eligibility, and put them under the jurisdiction of the Council of Indigenous Peoples.
The standard definition of the indigenous Pingpu people is that the term includes all indigenous peoples who speak an Austronesian language and are not defined as per the groups listed under Article 4 of the Indigenous People’s Act (原住民身份法), the bill says.
In the same article, it further states that the indigenous people whose languages, customs and culture are still extant and who still maintain their identity, and can cite subjective historical documents that can back up such identity, customs, languages and culture, can place an application with the Council of Indigenous Peoples.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
The review panel would include experts and academics and should comprise 11 to 23 people, and the number of panel members of any gender should not be fewer than one-third of the total number of committee members, the act says.
The mission, organization, operations, selection of panel members, their terms of service and the circumstances requiring committee members to recuse themselves should all be defined by the Council of Indigenous Peoples, it says.
Should an application be approved, the government is obligated to publish official notices outlining the criteria for recognition for that application for five years and, if necessary and after consulting with the people, extend the official notice period by another five years.
If, during this period, the people feel the need to issue, either collectively or individually, a documented application for additional certification processes, the Council of Indigenous Peoples should accept such petitions.
As of yesterday, nine Pingpu groups — the Siraya, the Taivoan, the Makatao, the Taukat, the Kaxabu, the Pazeh, the Papora, the Papulu and the Ketagalan — had already filed applications, the council said.
There are 620,000 lowland and highland indigenous people, and there are potentially 980,000 Pingpu indigenous people, according to council statistics.
The council said that preparations for relevant ancillary acts and cross-jurisdictional administrative processes have been completed and the government would attempt to expedite the ratification of applications and register people under their new ethnic identities.
The Siraya people filed an administrative lawsuit seeking rectification of their Siraya identity in 2010, and received a favorable ruling from the Constitutional Court in 2022.
The court ruled that the legal definition of “indigenous,” which excludes other classifications such as the Siraya, fails to uphold paragraphs 11 and 12 of Article 10 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文).
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