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116 Taiwan Development Perspectives 2009
be filed with the next higher authorities of the police.
Voluntary notification makes this article irrelevant.
All versions remove the irrelevant act. However, the
Executive Yuan version which retains the coercive notification
mechanism does not offer alternative stipulations
for review. As a consequence, organizers will have
no recourse when their applications for an assembly or
a demonstration are rejected or their plans modified.
6. Imprisonment or Fine
One of the main criticisms against the current act
is that offenders have to go to jail and pay a fine, if
convicted. Its Article 29 stipulates organizers of public
meetings found to have disobeyed police orders can be
sentenced to not more than two years in prison. All
published versions delete this article. But the government-proposed
version gives the police the power to
fine offending organizers repeatedly until after their
public meetings come to an end.
7. Qualifications of Organizers
The current act specifies the qualifications of organizers,
their representatives and personnel in charge
of control at public meetings. Among those who are not
eligible are people under 20 years of age and foreign
nationals. Most versions remove the qualifications, because
the right to demonstrate has nothing to do with
one’s age and nationality. Actually, migrant workers,
new immigrants and international students who are no
citizens are the groups most vulnerable to exploitation
in Taiwan. Depriving them of the right to organize protest
rallies infringes on their human rights to fight for
better treatment when they are mistreated. Only the
administration wants to retain the limited eligibility of
organizers and their assistants.
8. Off-limits Area
demonstrations to take place near such locations as
important government offices, international airports and
harbors, military establishments, and the residences of
foreign diplomats. All versions remove this control.
Proponents are convinced that if people want to have
their complaints heard, they have to go to those places
that are made off-limits now. If the law prohibits them
from demonstrating in the face of government officials,
they may lose chances to seek effective recourse. But
the administration demands protestors to demonstrate in
places “at a safe distance” away from the off-limits
areas prescribed in the current act, though that safe distance
is not clearly defined.
9. Other Possible Revisions
The Executive Yuan retains Article 2 of the current
act, in which the term demonstration is not clearly defined.
All other versions insist on defining the demonstration
as a group action to campaign for a cause.
Its Article 3 assigns local chiefs of police to authorize
public meetings. But no mention is made of
exactly who their next higher authorities are to whom
organizers can go to ask for a review if their applications
for a public meeting are turned down or their
meeting schedule is modified. That has caused confusion
in the past. Is the local government head the next
higher authorities of chiefs of police? Or should the
director of the National Police Agency be asked to review
the decision of a local chief of police? All the versions
except the one proposed by the government
makes the National Police Agency the next higher authorities
of all local chiefs of police.
All versions delete Article 4 of the act in force that
bans public meetings in support of Communism or division
of the national territory of the Republic of China
in Taiwan.
The act in force does not allow assemblies and