文章內容: Human-rights experts attending a conference held yesterday to mark Human Rights Day, which fell on Dec. 10, said that in order to transform Taiwan into a state that fully upholds human rights, a new constitution appropriate to Taiwan and government review over existing injustices is urgently needed.

Experts at the conference, held by the Taiwan New Century Foundation (台灣新世紀文教基金會), a think tank dedicated to the advancement of human dignity values in Taiwan, said that the political deadlock in the Legislative Yuan has seriously hampered Taiwan's efforts in achieving an overall improvement in its human-rights situation.

Chen Lung-chu (陳隆志), the foundation's chairman and also a senior research scholar at Yale Law School, said that since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took power in 2000, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has stressed that human-rights infrastructure-building for a human-rights respecting state was one of his key policies.

However, Chen Shui-bian's efforts to establish a national human-rights committee and make the International Bill of Rights national law were both rejected by opposition parties in the legislature.

"Taiwan does need a new constitution. Advancing the levels of democracy and human-rights development in Taiwan relies on a collaborative partnership between the government and the people," Chen Lung-chu said.

Chen Lung-chu argued that Chen Shui-bian's two ideas regarding human-rights infrastructure-building for a human-rights respecting state and the people's right of initiative (創制權) must be included in any new constitutional system for Taiwan.

In addition to Taiwan's long-term unfamiliarity with international standards of human rights, experts said that, sadly, the nation's people had learned little about violence from their past misfortune and were often unaware of micro-levels of violence that are imposed by both society and the government.

According to Wu Hao-jen (吳豪人), the chairman of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, since 2000, the DPP-led government has not effectively removed the shadow of injustice that clouds the history of many innocent people. Wu said persuasive examples …