A National Human Rights Commission for Taiwan?

At a formal dinner held in the Presidential Office on 15 January 2017 for visiting scholars and experts from abroad before they settled down to review the second national report on implementation of the two international human rights covenants, the Vice-President announced that a decision on the creation of a national human rights commission will be forthcoming, no later than the end of the year. It came as no surprise that many human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had worked long and hard on this issue and several foreign offices in Taipei were encouraged by the news. However, the sense of impending success must be scrutinized against a dismal record of failure during a sixteen-year effort to bring about a national human rights commission, taking the year 2000 as year zero. The primary question of this chapter is why sixteen years were not enough for the government and civil society in Taiwan, with subtle but firm support from the international community, to come to a favorable decision. To be precise, this chapter asks: (1) Where did the initiative come from and what role did civil society play? (2) What were the responses of the Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou administrations? (3) What role did mass media play? (4) What support came from the international community, and (5) What can be expected from the new administration of Tsai Ing-wen? It is indeed puzzling that, in light of the great strides Taiwan has been making in the promotion and protection of human rights over the past thirty-some years and President Tsai’s pledge that she will actively promote judicial reform, transitional justice, as well as reform of the pension system, among other items on her agenda, a national human rights commission based on the Paris Principles is nowhere in sight. As of this writing, a promising hypothesis is that it is due to procrastination on the part of the political elite entangled in a tug of war among the different governmental branches, in particular, opposition from the Control Yuan. It needs to be noted in passing that the Control Yuan is quite unique in that it is one of the five branches of the government stipulated in the constitution that was designed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China, as a creative improvement on modern Western theory and practice by taking advantage of what are the best in the traditional Chinese governmental structure. As such, the Control Yuan has the power to supervise the performance of the government bureaucracy and to impeach them if and when the circumstances so warrant, thus the controversy over the investigatory power. More on that later. The literature relied on for this chapter includes both official documents and reports by civil society organizations as well as scholarly studies. It is supplemented by my observations as a member of the Presidential Human Rights Advisory Committee (PHRAC). I have learned a few things in regard to the attitudes and thinking of the political elite concerning a national human rights commission and how the bureaucracy performs in a rapidly changing situation. I have great admiration and respect for the tenacity and courage of the nongovernmental organizations that have worked hard and contributed much to bring Taiwan closer to international human rights standards. A caveat, however, needs to be addressed. Through the years, several prominent human rights activists have been recruited into government service and have quickly given up their previous positions to support government policies. This change of mind could not but be deeply demoralizing to their former colleagues in the NGOs and have led to mistrust of the government.