Letter to Taiwan Association for Human Rights (2003)

Letter to Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR)
Taiwan Association for Human Rights
Hsin-sheng S. Road, Section 3
Lane 25, No. 3, 9th Floor
Taipei, TAIWAN
Telephone:886-2-23639787
Facsimile:886-2-23636102
E-mail:tahr@seed.net.tw

cc: Scholars at Risk
University of Chicago

16 August 2003

Dear Ms. Wu,

I appreciate the involvement of TAHR in the case of human rights abuses at
National Cheng Kung University, in Tainan. From what I understand, a
lawmaker, upon request, contacted the Ministry of Education and was advised
issues were in administrative process.
However, this case should not be reduced to an administrative matter.
Rather it involves a history of abuses, as well as basic problems in
administrative remedy at all institutional levels.
An appeal that drags on for years (in my case, more than four)
undermines the purpose of administrative remedy. A process without
conclusion or punishment of officials is no remedy, but delays remedy.
These are causes for concern and reflect a wider problem.
Abuses have become routine at our university. Several professors have
resigned, frustrated by administrative remedy.
University regulations, presumably protecting faculty, are vague and
easily ignored by officials indifferent to democratic principles. Advised
the university president was defying the law, one dean expressed disbelief.
After all, she said, the university had a lawyer.
Perhaps such naivete is feigned. Even uneducated people know that
lawyers represent a client, not the law, while democracy is rule by law, not
lawyers.
But the fact that a Ministry of Education committee boldfaced countless
violations in its ruling of 8 January 2001 shows our officials are
undereducated about human rights. This lack of education should concern
human rights groups.
Indeed, our officials routinely adopt democratic forms while basing
decisions on relationships. Vague regulations make this easy, such as
(translated): “The chairman may see the need to invite an accused professor
for the purpose of defense,” making that rule open to arbitrary application,
allowing or barring a professor’s defense.
Rights, such as the right to appeal, turn out, in reality, to be no
rights at all. Rules insuring due process seem good on paper. But these
regulations are easily ignored.
Laws are differently used or interpreted, as happened in my case. A
committee is considered legal so long as the right number of committee
members is present, regardless of the number of rights violated. Principles
of right and wrong are replaced by rules of right and wrong procedures.
Committee members are not even certain of what they voted for until a
committee chairman writes it. In my case, committee members thought they had
voted to cancel my dismissal, according to law, and were surprised to read a
decision that referred my case for further “review.”
So law at our university is in the hands of a few officials who advance
their designs against the public interest. Is there a difference between
Mainland Chinese officials writing selective laws to punish the Falun Gong
and a few officials using laws arbitrarily to punish some and reward
others? Is there a difference between unjust laws and interpreting just
laws for unjust goals?
As everyone knows by now, the university “interpreted” a Final Ministry
Appeal to mean the appellant, an American, should be reviewed again.
Indeed, not merely again, but again and again, endlessly reviving
accusations rejected on appeal. This is the form of democracy without its
substance and a travesty of its purpose.
Human rights officials should not be deceived by a process that took so
long and continues, with revivals of accusations rejected in the Ministry
ruling of 8 January 2001, forcing another appeal. How long will this
mockery of law be tolerated before someone voices public concern?
The purpose of administrative appeal is to allow for a time-limited
remedy, preventing a stronger party from harassing the weaker. This
discourages misconduct while encouraging appeal. Principles of human
rights, including final appeal, insure that justice, not power, prevails.
The alternative is what happened in my case, even worse when a foreign
professor has visa concerns. Except for a few enlightened colleagues who
dedicated themselves to justice, and the sacrifice I myself made, I could
not have outlasted the delay tactics of university officials who violated
laws with impunity.
Their violations were not technical errors but human rights abuses.
Officials should not solicit secret letters, suborn students to write them,
or collude to secretly circulate them. These abuses are documented,
including letters from former students retracting suborned accusations.
In addition, when the president of a university ignores a Ministry
ruling for more than two years, I call that obstruction of justice,
regardless what it’s called in Taiwan. A president of the United States was
forced to resign for obstruction of justice, while the president of our
university was re-elected.
These abuses are typical, not isolated examples. It's commonly hoped
officials act for the best. But democracy advances by suspecting the worst.

However, based on a culture of subservience ("relationships"),
committee members presume the best. The assumption seems to be that whatever
an official did was right or he would not have done it.
Thus committees routinely ratify ("rubber-stamp") decisions rather
than deliberate them. Since nobody is held accountable, misconduct is
commonplace.
In a culture of face, a petitioner is considered outside the system
instead of part of it. He is wrong rather than trying to right wrongs.
Review becomes revenge. Officials convince committees to accept
baseless accusations. Or laws are “interpreted” to suit committee aims.
Other officials then “close ranks” in support.
Committees protect each other instead of the law. Yet democracy is a
government of laws, not committees. Committee members should uphold the
law, not replace it.
Reversals on technical grounds delay remedy. Afterwards, committees
spitefully repeat the same accusations or invent new ones, saving face while
the appellant loses time and finally gives up.
Meanwhile, officials stonewall by passing responsibility to others.
The assumption is no one is responsible.
But in a democracy, everyone is responsible, from the top down, or
there are laws, but no Law. A human rights group should be concerned about
this, since human rights issues cannot be separated from human welfare, as
the cover-up at Ho Ping hospital showed.
When a dean ignores a request for a supervised meeting with a student
who wrote a secret accusatory letter, human rights are at stake but also the
common welfare. Professors have a right to request a supervised meeting
with a student, or why have an Office of Student Affairs? How can there be
academic standards if no officials enforce them? And if there are no
academic standards, the future of Taiwan education is dim.
Court decisions, reviewed in a previous email, should be of related
concern. A district attorney should not be allowed to dismiss a complaint
on hearsay testimony. Nor should he excuse review members of libel because
their accusation was based on a letter they themselves signed. And if a
court concludes it is reasonable for a student to complain of a grade
received eight years before, this undermines confidence in judicial remedy
in Taiwan and discourages international association.
I think human rights groups should be concerned about these issues,
affecting education as well as the general welfare. No faculty member aware
of my case, as most are, will defend academic standards against peer
pressure knowing administrative remedy is futile. But if education is
compromised, so is the future of Taiwan.
Finally, a human rights group should be concerned that faculty, instead
of advancing human rights, are indifferent to, or in violation of, them. In
view of these issues, it seems to me concern should be publicly voiced to
encourage development of human rights here.

Sincerely,


Professor Richard de Canio
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
(06) 237 8626