Rights

Controversial legislation included:

1. Regulations governing the distribution of expense account money to local elected representatives and village and neighborhood chiefs: These regulations greatly increase payments made to local executive and assembly officials. With the passage of this law, the budget for these expenses should be forced up from the current NT$4.4 billion to more than NT$7 billion.

Besides being seen as a blatant handout to influence the presidential election, and a contradiction of government promises to eliminate the positions of these local officials (who are big players in political patronage networks), the law also brought criticism from Taipei and Kaohsiung city councillors, whose salaries are cut by the bill. However, Minister of the Interior Huang Chu-wen insists that city councillors were amply consulted during the drafting process.

2. The law to encourage private-sector participation in public infrastructure projects: This law stipulates that the private sector may undertake BOT projects (build, operate, and transfer to the government) for major public infrastructure, including development of new towns, major industrial enterprises, and high-tech facilities. Besides offering tax incentives, the new law will assist private investors to get beyond the limits of current law and invest in new land. Indeed, it will even enable private investors to undertake compulsory land purchasing using government authority. Also, companies involved in major transportation infrastructure will be allowed to issue new stock or corporate debt to raise funds.

This law should have a positive effect for current BOT projects which are facing obstacles, including the high-speed railway and the proposed rapid transit line to CKS International Airport. There will now be a legal basis for the high-speed railway to raise more capital. Also, now that the regulations for establishing new towns have been revised, the proposed plan to build a mass transit line to the airport by the Chang Yi financial group can become reality.

However, some scholars have criticized this law for being poorly formulated and open to abuse. Yang Chung-hsin, a researcher in the Institute of Economics at the Academia Sinica, says that to give financial groups and business operators the same powers as the government to requisition land can only be done if equal attention is given to fairness and efficiency; otherwise, the interests of landowners will clash, and there will be endless disputes.

3. Regulations on a national financial stabilization fund: This law will empower the government to intervene to protect the stock market. In the event of "threats to national stability"-such as major internal or external events, rapid movements of international capital-the government will be able to draw on an NT$500 billion fund.

This law has been criticized by academics as a serious distortion of the market mechanism, as putting the policy makers into the position of being market players, and as inevitably creating opportunities for insider trading and the manipulation of the market to the benefit of a privileged few.

But President Lee Teng-hui and members of the Cabinet have argued that Taiwan's stock market is too vulnerable to cross-strait developments, and this law will enable the government to stabilize the market-and thus domestic morale-in the event of crises like the 1996 PRC missile tests.

4. The National Defense Law and the organic law of the Ministry of Defense: The NDL will unify the administrative channel (previously handled by the Ministry of Defense) and the war-fighting chain of command (previously under the virtually autonomous general staff). Now the general staff will be clearly placed under the minister of defense, who will be a civilian. These changes mark a new era in ROC military modernization.

The "organic law" will, among other changes, cause individual services to lose their respective intelligence agencies, which will be unified under the general staff. The political warfare system (an autonomous system of political commissar-type officers, created in early Republican times, to ensure the loyalty of the military to the nationalist revolution's leaders) will be reorganized and its functions will undergo a qualitative change. Though it remains to be seen if the political warfare system will retain its own officer corps and academy separate from the regular armed forces, Minister of Defense Tang Fei says that the ultimate goal is to unify all the officer corps.

5. The coastal defense law and the organic law of the Coast Guard Command: This will establish the Coast Guard as a ministerial level body, responsible for coastal defense and for combating smuggling and illegal immigration. Some say that this does not conform to the ideal of streamlining the government, and also say that it is very unusual to bring a front-line law enforcement agency into the cabinet. Also, the idea that the 22,000-man Coast Guard will be represented in the cabinet, while the 70,000-plus-man police force remains sub-ministerial, rankles among some police officers.

However, the Executive Yuan argues that Taiwan's coastal policing work also touches on national defense and sovereignty questions (with regard to the Tiaoyutai or Spratly Islands, for example). A single unified body with sufficient rank is necessary to integrate these functions with coastal and shoreline law enforcement and fishing harbor inspections.

6. Regulations governing reconstruction in the wake of the September 21 earthquake: This law will govern reconstruction after the expiration of the original emergency decree. It calls on the Executive Yuan to create a community reconstruction fund for damaged areas. Urban renewal laws have been relaxed to offer incentives for people to rebuild.

The legislation also arranges for children under 18 orphaned by the quake to receive a government-subsidized trust fund to pay for their living expenses and education. Also, people who had mortgages against their property prior to the earthquake, and whose homes have been officially confirmed as destroyed, will have the interest payments delayed for five years. Finally, there will be reduction of land and real estate taxes for homes in the disaster areas for a period not to exceed three years.

Among the less controversial new legislation is the following:

Legislation on soil and groundwater pollution will raise the penalties for such pollution, up to life imprisonment if the pollution leads to death. A fund will be established to clean up future cases of soil and groundwater contamination.

The law governing compensation for wrongful imprisonment in the martial law era under charges such as subversion and spying has been broadened in applicability. Persons applying for such compensation will no longer be limited by the original two-year application deadline. Also, the law governing temporary release from detention has been amended so that anyone being held for a crime that carries a sentence of five or more years, if released for medical treatment, may not engage in election campaigns or any activity not related to treatment, and must go back in to detention upon recovering.

Another law offers protection to anyone who provides evidence in criminal or organized crime cases. Finally, new nationality regulations change the previous patrilineal nationality system to a joint patrilineal-matrilineal system. Now the children of Chinese women and foreign men will also be entitled to ROC nationality (as the children of Chinese men and foreign women always have been), thus realizing equal treatment under the law for men and women.

New legislation governing electronic games imposes strict penalties for use of video games for gambling or harming public morals. Operators can be fined up to NT$1 million if they knowingly allow middle-school or primary-school children to play in their shops during school hours.

Amendments to the existing cultural assets preservation law will bring historical structures under protection, and will also permit the use of modern technology to repair or protect historic structures so long as the original appearance of the building remains intact. Also, in the future, whole historic settlements or streets can be considered monuments to be preserved.

Finally, a law governing control and treatment of rare diseases, will allow importation of appropriate medications, treatments, and essential life-saving nutritional supplements for those suffering from tens of unusual ailments.

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Legislators burned the midnight oil to pass last-minute bills. Many who found the ordeal too much to take had to sneak in naps whenever possible. (photo by Li Chih-wei)

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With an election coming up, the battles in the legislature have been especially hard-fought. (photo by Wang Ying-hao)

With an election coming up, the battles in the legislature have been especially hard-fought. （photo by Wang Ying-hao）