Letter to the Control Yuan of Taiwan

From:
8/26/2003 10:34 AM
Subject: ATTN: Chairman, Control Yuan: Concerning Legal Rights Abuses at
National Cheng Kung UniversityTo: Control Yuan
CC: tahr@seed.net.tw, rquinn@midway.uchicago.edu
BCC: Ray Dah-tong

The Control Yuan
Taipei, Taiwan

cc: Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Scholars at Risk

26 August 2003

Dear Members of the Control Yuan,

As I understand your conclusion regarding abuses at National Cheng
Kung University, none were committed.
If this is true, that means closed meetings, unproved allegations,
secretly circulated letters at committee hearings, use of “review”
committees to harass faculty, and failure to execute a Ministry of
Education ruling for more than two years are not violations of law in
Taiwan.
It means a university can ignore seven or eight warning letters
from the Ministry of Education without fear of penalty.
It means Final Appeals in Taiwan are not final, but can be
contested indefinitely, at least in the case of foreign faculty.
It means university officials can “interpret” laws and rulings as
they see fit, delaying or defying compliance when convenient, with no
fear of penalty.
Confucius warned that before there can be justice, we must “rectify
the names” and call things what they are. Officials elsewhere cannot
incarcerate and torture Falun Gong members and call it “hospitalization”
and “treatment.” Not if one uses proper names.
In the same way, National Cheng Kung University officials should
not be allowed, with impunity, to hold secret meetings.
They should not be allowed to circulate secret letters.
They should not be allowed to suborn students to write those
letters.
They should not be allowed to repeatedly harass faculty by calling
it “review.”
They should not be allowed to discriminate against foreign faculty.

They should not be allowed to “interpret” laws or behave like a law
unto themselves.
They should not be allowed to delay remedy and compensation for
injustice.
Whatever one calls these acts, they are unacceptable and would
almost certainly result in serious penalties, up to and including
dismissal, in most universities. Apart from issues of human rights,
toleration of these abuses in Taiwan will undermine confidence in law
and administrative remedy here. It will also compromise academic
exchanges.
By your decision, as I understand it, you seem to justify
contesting a Final Appeal ruling. Then what is the point of final
appeals or administrative remedy?
By your decision, you seem to invite officials to “interpret” laws
and rulings as convenient, knowing, regardless of administrative delays
or social harm, there will be no punishment.
Such tolerance encouraged the SARS scandal at Ho Ping Hospital.
Prompt remedies, including penalties, quickly eliminated the threat of
SARS in Taiwan. This shows that enforcement of laws and the social
welfare are linked, just like international observance of human rights
and international membership.
The idea that officials are not bound by law, but are a law
themselves, is a problem that must be challenged if Taiwan is to advance
as a government of laws. The alternative to law is tyranny, regardless
of the mask it wears.
Democracy, after all, is a government of laws, not officials. If
those laws are capriciously subject to “interpretation,” there is no end
to the danger of official misconduct, such as abuses committed at
National Cheng Kung University, regardless of the names we call them.
Please remember that laws in my country protect Taiwan citizens.
These laws are not subject to “interpretation” by officials so as to
avoid their final authority and replace it with an official’s own. A
white horse in American law is still a horse.
I am certain if a Taiwan citizen suffered similar abuses in
America, there would be protesters gathered outside the AIT in Taipei
making their displeasure known. Taiwan lawmakers would quickly expose
the “scandal,” while newspaper editorialists would deploy the entire
lexicon of ethical terms to call those abuses by their proper names.
But we often forget the names of things until our own interests are at
stake.
Taiwan officials invoke the concept of “reciprocity” when their
dignity is at stake. Try to consider that concept when the dignity of
others is at stake. Please remember that principle, so basic in Chinese
ethics, when you reconsider this case.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Professor Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan